The Exit
by Ninnik Nishukan
Summary: Ryoga, Ukyo, Ranma and Akane are heading back home after the Cursed Tunnel of Lost Love. Public transportation sure gives you a lot of time to think, doesn't it? FINALLY FINISHED. YAY?
1. ONE

**The Exit**

Ninnik Nishukan

* * *

Ryoga groaned as he stumbled out of the cave, having just shaken off the last few annoying spirits. Letting go of a hiss, he winced as he prodded the scratches on his arms; the spirits may not have been very powerful, but there had been an awful lot of them, and they sure could scratch and bite.

"Hey! Jackass!"

The high-pitched curses coming from behind told him that Ukyo wasn't quite out of trouble yet. Rolling his eyes at the dreaded derogatory nickname she always used for him, he squared his shoulders and turned back to get her. She'd dispatched most of the spirits, but there was one or two still clinging stubbornly to her arms. She'd dropped her spatula on the ground a few feet away; Ryoga sighed and went to pick it up.

"You know," he remarked almost casually, twirling the spatula around from hand to hand to get the feel of it as he advanced on the spirits, "you should really practice fighting without weapons more often." He was fully aware of the fact that it was a terribly rude thing to say while she was in dire need of help, but his head and his ego were both still sore from all the spatula beatings she'd given him earlier that day.

As expected, Ukyo was furious. Her eyes narrowed, her face reddened; suddenly she wrenched one arm free from the ghostly grip and sucker-punched the nearest spirit.

It evaporated.

Suitably impressed, Ryoga decided to stop joking around and help her out. The second spirit was cut down by Ukyo's spatula.

"What the hell was _that_ all about?" Ukyo exclaimed, kicking his shin as an afterthought.

Ryoga winced. "Ukyo?"

"_Now _what?" Ukyo asked irritably.

BAP!

Ukyo blinked. Ryoga had just bopped her over the head. With her own spatula. With her _own _spatula. With her _own— _

"I always wanted to do that." He told her solemnly, and she simply snapped, ripping her spatula from his grasp. "What the," CLANG! "hell," CLANG! "is wrong," CLANG! "with you today!" She demanded, yelling at the top of her voice.

"Stop hitting me!" Ryoga shouted back, clenching his fists.

"You hit me first!" She retorted, falling back on school yard logic.

"Oh, _please_! That was barely a _tap_! You've been beating me all day!" He yelled, affronted and disbelieving. Who was _she _to talk?

Ukyo spluttered. "I certainly have _not_— "

"Besides, you kicked me!" He added, interrupting her.

She snapped for air. "You— you _deserved_ it, you left me hanging there while... while making patronizing remarks!"

Ryoga shrugged it off. "Well, you really _should_ learn how to fight without a weapon."

"None of your business!" Ukyo blurted out, knowing it was a last resort kind of response and that she'd be losing the argument. As they walked into the sunlight, she flinched when she caught sight of the claw marks on his over arms.

"Maybe then you'd stop hitting me with that goddamn spatula!" He barked back, nursing his head.

Ukyo was just contemplating whether to apologize, but then he just went on. "I don't know why I agreed to be a part of your stupid plans! They never work, anyway..."

"Hey!" She protested. "Nobody forced you!"

"_What_? You dragged me in there! Literally!" He reminded her, crossing his arms over his chest. "I _had_ to stick with you or I'd be lost in there!"

Ukyo put her hands on her hips, unconvinced. "I seem to recall somebody being just as enthusiastic as me over this so-called 'stupid' plan."

"You talked me into it!" Ryoga insisted, growing red, "You_ tricked_ me!"

"Yeah, well... in that case you're not awfully hard to trick, are you, Einstein?" Ukyo said hotly, clutching her spatula until her knuckles went white. "Hah! As if you have no free will? As if it's all _my_ fault?"

"I _told _you, I would've been lost if I didn't— " He shook his head, gritting his teeth, frustrated with her. "Y-you kept bossing me around, kept on telling me that it'd all work out— and of course it was all a bunch of crap!"

"Are you calling me a _liar_?"

Ryoga backed away in the face of her wrath. "I just think you might've misunderstood that whole ghost thing— it was all wrong!"

"Are you calling me _stupid_, now?"

Ryoga closed his eyes briefly, looking like he was fighting an oncoming headache. "Now, _listen_ here— "

"Ryoga! Ukyo!"

They turned their heads and saw Ranma and Akane sitting at a snack shop, eating mochi balls and ice cream.

"Come over here, you guys! The snacks are great!"

They were trying to hide it, but Ryoga and Ukyo could tell by the looks on their faces that Ranma and Akane had witnessed most of the fight. Ukyo let a breath out, forcing her shoulders to relax; she glanced at Ryoga, who, like her, looked slightly red with embarrassment. Opening her mouth to apologize, Ukyo got caught in the full force of his glare, so she snapped it shut without a word uttered. _If he's going to be like** that**...!_

"If you hadn't let yourself get carried away like that..." she muttered, refusing to look at him, "if you'd just managed to stick to the plan, if you hadn't been running around like a headless chicken...then I wouldn't have _had_ to boss you around."

"You didn't have to bash my head in while doing so!" Ryoga hissed, both of them trying to keep their voices down as they approached Ranma and Akane.

"Oh, yeah?" Scoffed Ukyo. "Then you obviously have no clue as to how far gone you can be at times!"

Ryoga's frame went even stiffer, his expression wooden, and she could tell by how red the tips of his ears were that the remark has struck home and more. He was very humiliated; so was _she_ beginning to feel when realizing just how bad she was able to make _him_ feel—when he suddenly made an unexpected comeback.

"And you obviously have no control whatsoever over your sadistic tendencies!" He muttered back poisonously.

She gasped. Did she really...? She had wanted to apologize, she honestly had, but she just couldn't bring herself to— and certainly not now when he had caused shame and anger to come to a boiling point within her soul.

Ryoga marched past her and sat down on the little bench in front of Ranma and Akane. "They're still fighting," Ranma mumbled under his breath so only Akane could hear him. Akane just shook her head and sighed. _We just finished fighting about two seconds_ _ago_, she thought, exasperated, _so who are we to talk? _She regarded Ryoga, staring at the ground, his lips pursed, his eyes hard, and Ukyo, her fists clenched, her mouth a tight line...but her eyes slightly shiny. A worried frown flitted across Akane's brow.

Ranma cocked his head, studying them. "What happened to _you_ guys?"

Ryoga shook his head, looking away. "_Somebody_ got us into trouble."

Ukyo crossed her arms over her chest. "_Somebody_ was being a stupid jerk and is blaming it all on me."

Ryoga was still looking away, scowling at nothing. "_Somebody_ is refusing to take responsibility for her actions."

Ranma rolled his eyes. He had no idea what they were talking about, but they seemed almost as bad as Akane and he on a bad day. And there weren't even any rivals or fiancées about. "Sounds to me like 'somebody' could use some ice cream."

Ukyo stood up abruptly. "Great idea, Ranchan!" She breezed past them, walking up to the creepy old man to get some ice cream.

As she contemplated the different ice cream flavours, she noticed that they didn't have any macha ice cream, her favourite flavour. This only further added to her foul mood. Slapping 200 yen on the counter, she chose vanilla. As the old man prepared her ice cream, she couldn't help but to overhear the conversation between Ryoga, Ranma and Akane.

"...and where's your backpack?" Akane asked Ryoga, no doubt an expression of concern on her face.

"Think I lost it back there...um, in the lake." She heard Ryoga respond hesitantly, then Ranma clearing his throat in a strange manner, as if there was something not entirely truthful about what Ryoga was saying. Ukyo wondered briefly what this might be. "What are you going to do for money?" Akane went on; Ukyo turned to glance at her and caught the furrowed brow, the worried look she gave Ryoga after looking helplessly to Ranma, a silent question in her eyes. What were they going to do?

"I...I don't know." Ryoga mumbled; as she turned back to the old guide, Ukyo could just picture his Adam's apple bobbing with nervousness. "I guess I don't r-really have...um...any...rations o-or..."

Ukyo felt a sudden, sharp pang of guilt at this. _How is he supposed to get home? He has no money for a train ticket and he can't walk there because he doesn't have his sleeping bag or his tent or his food or— _and it was all her fault. Well, a lot of it, anyway. He didn't have to blame it _all _on her, did he?

Ukyo glanced down at her ice cream, then at Ryoga, looking glum. "Give me another one." She told the spooky old man, sighing.

* * *

Ryoga sat staring at the ground, his back aching and the angry velts on his arms stinging. He had no idea what to do next. He had no resources whatsoever, and—

An ice cream cone suddenly appeared in front of his face, and he looked up, slightly startled. Ukyo, wearing an awkward expression— a little embarrassed, a little grudging— was offering him ice cream.

"Um..." He stared at her, baffled.

"Just take it," Ukyo mumbled, shoving the cone into his hand and plopping down on the bench next to him.

Ryoga studied her profile as she began eating her ice cream. She had a scratch on her chin from the ghosts, her hair bow was askew and her hair itself sticking out in all directions. The outfit she was wearing, already unusually revealing for Ukyo, had been ripped in the front, deepening her cleavage just a tad; his eyes darted quickly away from this area.

He was lost in thought as he ate his ice cream; there wasn't much left of the Ukyo he'd met back then, the first time.

Sure, she was still bossy as hell, but her face looked more mature, more feminine, her hair was longer and she'd certainly...filled out quite nicely. No one would mistake her for a guy anymore.

In addition, this had to be the first time she'd ever apologized to him, even if she hadn't said the actual words. Maybe she _had_ changed? Grown up?

Ukyo watched as Ranma and Akane went to get some tea, glancing then at Ryoga. Maybe she should—

"I'm sorry," she blurted before she got to think twice about it. As Ryoga turned wide eyes on her, she found herself blushing again. "Sorry." She repeated quietly.

"I...I'm sorry, too." He replied in the same quiet tones. "I kinda lost my head, I guess."

"I was being a bitch." Ukyo said bluntly, which caused him to stare at her, mouth open. "Well, I was!" She exclaimed defensively. "That _was_ the unspoken word, right?" She added through clenched teeth.

Ryoga cleared his throat then, deciding to end it before it got even more ridiculous. "We were both being idiots." He said hastily.

"Yeah," She agreed, starting in on her ice cream again. Glancing at him, she noticed that he'd already finished his, and an unexpected, random thought popped up in her head.

_When was the last time he ate?_

"So, um...you headed back to Nerima?" He asked, managing to sound almost casual.

"Yeah, uh— this was only meant to be a one day trip." There was a moment of silence before she drew her breath. "You coming, too?" She asked, already knowing the answer.

Ryoga looked wretched. "I...I can't..." He trailed off timidly.

"You can borrow money from me for the train fare," she told him, immediately tensing, afraid that she'd been too obvious, that he'd wonder how she knew.

When she heard him exhale in relief, however— inaudibly enough that it was obvious to her that she wasn't supposed to hear it— she relaxed. "Just pay me back whenever. It's not that much."

For about two seconds, he looked like he was about to decline— for pride's sake, or just to be polite, who knew?— but simply nodded instead. "Th-thank you, Ukyo."

"Don't mention it." She flapped a hand in dismissal. "It's the least I can do after— anyway, it's no big deal."

"Still, thank you." Ryoga was actually smiling a little now; it dawned onUkyo that the sight was somewhat of a novelty, and she couldn't help but wonder why this was.

"See?" Said Ranma cheerfully as he and Akane regarded the two. "Ice cream always works wonders." Akane just shook her head at him, chuckling.

* * *

"You should seriously get patched up, get some bandages on those," Ranma prompted them as he and Akane returned.

"It does look kind of painful." Akane chimed in, a concerned frown etched on her forehead. "Did you meet any more ghosts?"

Ukyo looked a little ashamed at that; those ghosts had been meant for Ranma and Akane. _They_ would be the ones all scratched up and bruised right now if it hadn't been for—

"I guess you can say that, yeah." She ducked her head, trying to avoid Akane's eyes.

Ryoga simply nodded.

"Well, here...looks like you'll need these." Said Akane, taking off her backpack and unzipping it to pull out a first aid kit. Ranma did the same.

Ryoga and Ukyo stared at them. "That's what you've been carrying around?" Ukyo raised an eyebrow. "First aid kits?"

"With lives like ours, it's better to be prepared." Akane said dryly.

"Why else would I be carrying around this girly-lookin' backpack?" Ranma added, which earned him an elbow in the ribs from Akane.

"Here," she said, smiling at them. "You get fixed up and we'll all go catch the train in a while." She handed them both the first aid kits. There was a strange, pinkish glow to her face suddenly, and she seemed almost giddy as she smiled at them, though she was obviously trying to suppress it.

"Th-thanks." Ryoga stuttered self-consciously as he accepted the first aid kit. Glancing at Ukyo, he could tell by her pained expression that she was thinking the same thing as he; how could Akane be so nice to them after they'd just dragged her and Ranma through a ghastly ghost cave for a few hours? Where the ghosts had been _real_?

Ukyo strained to hear what Akane was saying as she and Ranma walked into the old guide's shop again. "I just...still can't believe it— isn't this such great news? It's so— I'm just so happy for them!" Ukyo heard her say in a hushed, yet excited voice to Ranma, who nodded back, also looking quite pleased with his lopsided grin. She'd have to ask Ranma later what the big fuss was all about. Maybe Dr. Tofu had finally got his rear in gear about Kasumi or something.

As she started dabbing disinfectant on her wounds, she glanced at Ryoga, who was doing the same, before returning to her work. He didn't seem to mind the pain too much, while she, on the other hand, thought it stung like the blazes. Then again, he was probably much more used to being hurt like this than she was. He travelled, trained, sparred and fought in real battles much more often than she; he didn't have a restaurant to run and classes to go to, though.

The disinfectant was necessary, however much it stung, because after all...it had been actual _ghosts_ that did this to them, and you never knew—

"Let's hope we haven't been infected with any undead zombie rabies or whatever..." Ryoga remarked grimly then, and she couldn't help but giggle a bit at that— her sentiments exactly.

"Wouldn't be too far-fetched, huh?" She grinned wryly, shaking her head.

Suddenly she felt a soft, wet pressure on her elbow and she gasped, her eyes snapping around to meet his; she relaxed when she saw that he was only pressing a damp cotton ball against her sore skin. "Missed a spot." He said by way of explanation, his cheeks red as he carefully wiped away the grime and blood before tossing the cotton ball into the waste basket by the benches.

"You didn't have to do that," she told him in a low, indefinable voice, and he glanced at her, unsure of what to make of it. Was she grateful? Was she annoyed? She didn't look too mad, so he simply shrugged.

"Want a band aid on that?"

Ukyo blinked a little before nodding. "Probably should." Nodding as well, he cut off a strip of band aid for her and applied it gently to her wound.

"What about you?" She asked then, raising both eyebrows as she examined his arms. He shied away from her scrutiny, glancing to one side. "It's really nothing." He muttered.

Ukyo sighed exasperatedly. "Stop being such a big, dumb...male!" She complained. "This," she said briskly, indicating her left arm, where only half of her upper arm had been scratched, "is nothing!" Then she pointed at his right arm, where pretty much the entire limb, including the elbow, had been clawed at, as well as his lower left forearm. "But _that_...that looks like you've just barely escaped the tiger pits at the zoo or something!" She told him firmly. At the look he gave her then, she crossed her arms defiantly over her chest. "I don't care if you think I'm bossy, 'cause you know I'm right."

The sceptical look he was giving her went on and on until she'd had enough.

"Gimme your arms," she demanded and he reluctantly offered up the limbs in question. "It's kind of tricky to bandage up your own arm with one hand, you know," She muttered. With practiced ease she started rolling the soft gauze around his right arm, starting at the bicep and working towards his wrist.

"When I'm done, you can help me, okay?" She suggested, glancing at him.

Ryoga nodded, then sucked in a breath and held it, trying to calm himself down. He wasn't used to being touched as gently as this; Ukyo's fingers brushed the tiny, sensitive hairs on the back of his arm as she applied the gauze, and the contact send little jolts of electricity to the roots of them, forcing him to try not to squirm in his seat. Whenever she touched the thinner flesh on the more vulnerable underside of his arm, the feathery pressure of the pads of her fingers tickled his skin. It made him feel so jittery, it was like a full-body itch, but at the same time it felt so dizzying; it all made him feel like he would collapse or something if he let his breath out.

Ukyo fastened the gauze tightly when she was done, then frowned in perplexity; she'd felt him trembling a little all through her work and her eyes darted up to his, trying to figure out why. His face was carefully blank, however, the only thing showing his discomfort a small worry knot on his brow.

Ukyo looked over at Akane and Ranma, but they offered no clue as they were busy gawking at the bizarre souvenirs the shop had to offer, like freaky little ghost figurines and not-very-catchy T-shirts saying things like: 'My Sweetheart Took Me To The Cursed Tunnel Of Lost Love, And All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt (Which I Even Had To Buy For Myself Because We Broke Up)'.

Ukyo rolled her eyes. _Why do couples even come here? _Turning back to Ryoga, she picked up another roll of gauze. "Are you okay?" She asked quietly as she started on his lower left arm. "Am I hurting you?" She added as the thought suddenly occurred to her, her hand halting in mid-air, hesitating.

"N-no!" Ryoga blurted, as if the question had been completely unexpected. "You're not— it's fine." He insisted, seeming somewhat dazed.

Reassured by this, Ukyo nodded and continued.

Her arm was an easy fix, but his fingers were trembling enough that it probably took an extra five minutes.

* * *

Ukyo took a quick glance at herself, reflected in the train window. She didn't look too bad; she'd borrowed Akane's hair brush and she'd put on some lip balm, and all things considered, she could've looked a lot worse, she told herself. After all, she'd just been attacked by a bunch of angry ghosts!

Still, she looked kind of tired, her clothes were scruffy and a little ripped, she had band aids on her chin and her elbow, bruises on her shoulders, ankles and arms, and of course there was her bandaged left upper arm...

...and then there was Ryoga. He had a few bruises here and there and a band aid on his cheek, but it was the bandages that really caught the eye. He looked like he was halfway through making his very own Return of The Lost Mummy costume for Halloween or something.

She'd been stuck with sitting next to him. There'd been few free seats on the train and Ranma and Akane had sat down next to each other. That's just how it was. There weren't that many seats.

...and yet she couldn't help thinking that this was the way the seating arrangements would've gone even if the entire train had been empty.

Ukyo wondered what they were talking about. And then she wondered what Ryoga thought about having to sit next to her and not Akane.

Akane, who was wearing a pretty little skirt and had perfect hair and didn't have bruise-covered skin or an unflattering band aid on her face...

Ukyo wondered if Ranma had even considered sitting next to her, or if he'd just assumed he'd be sitting next to Akane.

She noticed the conductor and some of the other passengers staring at her and Ryoga, and she averted her eyes, cheeks burning with shame.

If they were staring at Akane at all, it had to be to look at her beautiful face or at her long legs, sticking out from underneath that impossibly short skirt— Ukyo frowned then, giving herself a little mental slap. Who was _she_ to talk, considering the state of her sizeable cleavage right now? Maybe she _should've_ bought that stupid T-shirt to cover—

"What's wrong?" Ryoga asked out of the blue, sending her a worried look.

"We look like the poster children for domestic violence!" Ukyo hissed through clenched teeth. "They probably think we're...that we've..."

Ryoga shrugged. He was so used to being looked at funny that most of the time he didn't even notice. He was freakishly strong, permanently and bizarrely lost and on occasion he turned into a small, black piglet. There were plenty of reasons for people to stare at him, and he'd had to learn to ignore them. "What are we supposed to do?" He whispered back pointedly. "Tell them we were attacked by evil spirits?"

Ukyo groaned a little, her shoulders slumping in defeat. "I know, I just...never mind."

"Just ignore them." Ryoga told her in a firm tone. "They'll forget about us in a minute." He added, attempting to placate her. "Once the train's been rolling for a while, most of them are gonna fall asleep or put their long noses in a book or a newspaper and out of where it doesn't belong. Trust me."

Ukyo tilted her head at him, taken aback. This had been an unusually long speech for Ryoga, not to mention a bit more confident than she was used to seeing him. She hadn't thought he was the type to be able to easily brush off the stares of strangers; he always seemed so self-conscious. "Thanks." She said quietly, but still felt a little uneasy.

Ever since she was little, she had hated staring eyes, hated gossip, and hated being singled out. It had followed her from before the incident with Ranma and all through high school. She had already been gossiped about even before Saotome Ranma came into her life because her father was 'just' an okonomiyaki chef and because of her rigid devotion to the same trade and the odd style of martial arts that her family combined it with. Then there was the fact that her mother had passed away, and that after this, she had become more and more tomboyish, what with being raised by her father alone. After the Saotome incident she had simply become even more of an outsider.

Ryoga regarded her knitted brows and pursed lips, the obvious feelings of discomfort that were shining in her eyes. Of course he wasn't invulnerable to the opinions of other people, it was just that unlike Ukyo, who more or less stayed in one place, he was constantly on the move and didn't have the chance to overhear gossip about him or be given critical glances from anyone who was anything more than some random stranger. He'd probably never see them again and they didn't know the first thing about him, so why should he care? People he actually cared about, though...their opinions always struck him deeply. Perhaps _too_ deeply at times.

"Ukyo?" He asked carefully, his hand hovering above her shoulder as he contemplated whether to reach out or not. "Do you...do you want the window seat?" He offered, figuring it would move her further away from the curious eyes and give her the landscape whizzing by outside to focus on instead.

Ukyo's eyes went wide at that. "What? Are you sure— " She started asking, but he nodded and got up, ushering her into the seat by the window. It was a bit cramped as they did the little dance of trying to push past each to switch seats, and she bumped her elbow into his hip by mistake and he lost his balance for a second and his nose crashed into her shoulder, his bangs falling over her bare skin, and he flailed a bit and tried to all but throw himself into his seat to spare them both the awkward contact, but she regained his equilibrium by steadying him by his arm, both finally slumping down into their respective seats.

Ukyo cleared her throat and shifted a bit to get comfortable. "Nice view." She murmured after a while as she regarded the telephone poles and the rice fields and the distant hills rolling by in an almost Zen-like rhythm, lulling her and causing her tense shoulders to go limp.

"No problem." Ryoga smiled just a little, pleased that she was feeling better.

* * *

"Tickets, please." The conductor said gruffly, looking at them in a meaningful way, as if he was having great doubts about their abilities to produce even _one_ ticket, let alone two. Ukyo nodded, hastily handing him the tickets from her pocket.

"All in order," The conductor said after a while, sounding almost regretful that this was so. Ryoga glared at him, but the conductor didn't seem to notice.

What he did notice, however, was the giant spatula currently resting against the seat in front of Ukyo. He raised a very sceptical eyebrow. "What is _that_ thing supposed to be?" He asked suspiciously, eyes darting between the two teenagers and the spatula.

"None of your busin— " Ukyo snapped, but to her surprise, Ryoga interrupted her.

"We were just in Osaka the other day, and we bought this as a souvenir, sir." Ryoga explained, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. "You know…those kinds of oversized novelty goods? It's a novelty spatula for okonomiyaki."

"Really?" The conductor frowned, then shook his head, looking as if he's just had all his suspicions about people from Osaka confirmed. "And if I might ask...what's happened to you two?"

"We had a hiking accident," Ukyo told him in a deadpan voice.

The conductor narrowed his eyes at the two of them, but in the end just clucked his tongue and walked away, muttering to himself.

"What a complete and utter jerk! Who does he think he is, acting like some sort of policeman or something!" Ukyo hissed when the man was out of sight. "What in the world was his problem?"

Ryoga shrugged. "Underpaid?"

Ukyo scoffed at that. "Overpaid, if you ask me!"

"Well, you said it..." Ryoga sighed. "We don't exactly look very...um..."

"We don't _not_ look like juvenile delinquents?" Ukyo asked flatly, and he coughed a bit.

"Exactly."

Ukyo let out a huff and leaned on the window sill. After a minute or two of watching the landscape unfolding again, she had calmed down, but she had also started thinking about a few things. "Ryoga...d'you...do you really think I use my weapons too much?" She asked timidly, absently fingering the handle of her battle spatula, propped up against the seat in front of her.

"Six times." Ryoga mumbled. Ukyo turned to him curiously and saw that he was just staring into space.

"What?" She asked, confused.

"Six times." He repeated. "That's how many times you hit me over the head with the spatula."

"That's not so— " She protested.

"And that was just today." He said bluntly, giving her a rather meaningful look.

"You were supposed to leave the cave with me, not Akane! How hard was that for you to understand?" She exclaimed, upset. How could he be starting this again? Didn't she feel bad enough already?

She scowled at him a little, but then she caught the eye of the old lady sitting in the seat on the other side. She was staring at them and clutching her handbag as if she was afraid they'd rob her, and it was abundantly clear that she'd heard every insane word about her hitting him repeatedly over the head with a giant spatula.

That shut her up.

Ukyo smiled sheepishly at the old lady before glancing at Ryoga, who appeared to have become just as flustered as she by her last comment. "You're not entirely wrong." She admitted eventually, looking down at her hands.

"Neither are you...I mean, in the cave, I just wasn't thinking. Or maybe I was thinking too much, I dunno. I should've listened to you." Ryoga mumbled. "Nothing wrong with weapons," he added quietly, shuffling his feet a little in the cramped space. "I use them as well. But sometimes you don't have them within reach, and _then_ what are you gonna do?"

Ukyo nodded; she'd gotten the point by now.

The landscape outside was now dotted by the occasional building bigger than a house, and she could tell they were getting closer to home. She watched the clothes flapping in the breeze on the clotheslines on the balconies of the small houses in between the taller buildings near the train tracks, watched the rice fields getting smaller and smaller until they could no longer rightly be called fields, but patches.

Suddenly she giggled, and he turned to see what's up.

"Oversized novelty goods...!" She laughed, swatting him good-naturedly over the head; as far as she could tell, it was the only place he hadn't been hurt much. "You are _such_ a jackass...!"

* * *

Ryoga jumped as something landed in his lap.

"Wake up, Hibiki!" Ranma shouted cheerfully, dumping a juice box in his lap and deftly tossing Ukyo a packet of yakisoba bread and a carton of oolong tea. "I've been to the food cart!"

Ryoga looked down. Beside the juice box, there was some curry bread. He scowled at Ranma, now busy throwing Ukyo a packet of melon bread, which she easily snatched out of the air. "Very funny." Ryoga growled, which caused Ukyo to blink in surprise. What was all _this_ about?

"I thought you _liked_ curry bread!" Ranma grinned, handing him a Meiji chocolate bar from the frighteningly big pile of food he was holding. Ryoga simply scowled at him further and made no move to accept the chocolate, and just for a second, Ranma looked uncertain. "All right, if you don't like curry bread, how about this pork cutlet bre— "

At this, Ryoga stood bolt upright, grabbing Ranma's shirt and shaking him a little, food raining down on the floor. "You are _not_ making me any more inclined to be a good mood, Saotome!" He snarled.

Ranma frowned, actually looking _troubled_, actually looking as if he'd thought twice about what he'd just said. "Look, I honestly forgot about the pork, I just— "

There was a sigh from behind them, and they both turned to see Akane standing there. "Really, Ranma, even when you're being nice, you're not being nice. What did you say or do this time?"

"Yeah, I'm kind of wondering about that, too," Ukyo piped up behind Ryoga, who suddenly let go of Ranma's shirt and turned a bit red. He swallowed, then busied himself with picking up the fallen food items. When he was done, he replaced them on the pile in Ranma's arms. "Sorry." He mumbled. He hadn't meant to get so mad, especially when Ranma was just re-using those archaic insults for the thousandth time, but he was getting quite tired, and he'd been dozing off, and the seat had been comfortable, and the sound of the train had been soothing, and life had looked sort of nice there for a while—

"Oh, it's just that whole bread feud thing." Ranma told the girls, shrugging. "Guess I just stirred up a few bad memories."

Ryoga was impressed at that. Once again, Saotome Ranma had failed to mention his Jusenkyo curse.

"Bread feud?" Ukyo looked puzzled.

"Yeah, we used to fight over the bread at lunch in junior high school and I always won."

"Close enough." Muttered Ryoga under his breath. He didn't want to make a big deal out of it; not only because the girls were watching, but also because Ranma was suddenly trying to be nice to him in what seemed like an earnest if awkward way…and he didn't know why.

"Oh." Ukyo said, baffled. She hadn't even known that Ranma and Ryoga had _went_ to the same school. She'd just never asked about anything from Ryoga's past...or his life in general, if it came to that. She'd never needed to know much beyond the fact that he wanted to date Akane.

"Here," Ranma tossed Ryoga a few items, which he caught easily. "Have some onigiri if you don't want the bread, and here's some ice tea. Sure you don't want the chocolate?"

"He does!" Ukyo grinned cheekily and leaned past Ryoga, reaching out to snatch the Meiji bar. She seldom ate any sweets, but today felt like the day to pamper herself, what with all she'd been through. Her antics earned a chuckle from Ranma, and she felt just a little bit better.

"Do you want to sit with us?" Akane asked then, pointing her thumb behind her. "Some people got off at the last stop, so now we've got two free seats back there that are facing ours, and there's even one of those little tables."

Ukyo took a quick glance in Ryoga's direction, but promptly checked herself when she realized with a certain shock what she was doing. Since when did she cease to be an individual and start seeing what Ryoga thought before making a decision? Then again, it _would_ be kind of mean of her to just leave him here alone if he didn't want to sit with them...

She noticed, then, that he was also looking to _her_ for an opinion, which frankly startled her. Then again, he was always so indecisive, so it wasn't really _that_ much of a surprise, right?

"Sure." Ryoga agreed, trying to smile politely. How could they refuse without being rude?

* * *

Somehow they'd ended up playing a game of Truth or Dare— Ranma had insisted, said he was bored and wanted to pass the time—which turned into a game of Truth or Truth because the possibilities of doing dares were very limited in a cramped, public place like a train. The questions just kept on getting more and more stupid.

Ryoga wished desperately for the pack of cards that were in the backpack he'd just lost earlier that day.

He had been lost in a weird underground cave all night and all morning before he bumped into Ranma, Akane and Ukyo, and he'd been smashing his way through solid rock walls for most of that time, and then to be dragged through a ghost cave and manhandled by crazy spirits...

His favourite pastime right then would definitely be _sleeping_.

For some reason, though, he just couldn't bring himself to let Ukyo entertain these two by herself. Being the innocent third party around Ranma and Akane was never fun. You might as well get the popcorn out right away and sigh resignedly to yourself as you watched the mayhem and hope like hell that they wouldn't involve _you_ in it somehow. But they always did.

It's almost as if they were constantly searching for yet another reason to fight when they were around other people. At least if he was awake Ukyo would have some sort of backup should a crisis occur.

Right then, though, bruised, bloodied, battered and fatigued, he thought that the only sort of backup he'd be able to provide would have to be moral support.

"Okay, this one's for you, Ryoga..." Ranma said, and Ryoga straightened his back and drew a breath as he could feel all eyes on him. "What's the furthest away from Nerima you've ever gotten lost?"

Ryoga cleared his throat self-consciously, ducking his head as he mumbled: "Iceland."

Ranma let out an explosive breath as if he'd been holding it.

"Say again?" Ukyo was leaning forward, her eyes wide.

"Iceland, all right?" Ryoga snapped, annoyed at all the unwelcome attention.

Ranma let out a low whistle. "I thought you hadn't been further than China, either! How'd you even _get_ to Iceland?"

"I...I don't know...I must've fallen asleep on a plane or a boat or something." Ryoga sighed. "If I knew how I keep ending up in all these weird places, don't you think I would've done something about it by now?"

Akane watched Ranma opening his big mouth again to retort, and hastily interrupted him. "How was it?"

Ryoga blinked at the unexpected question, then shrugged. "Cold, I guess. Expensive." He thought for a while before adding: "They had some really nice hot springs, though."

"Bet they did," Ranma said under his breath, and got a well-placed elbow from Akane for his troubles.

"Okay, Ryoga, it's your turn," Ukyo said brightly; she was actually _enjoying_ this silly game, but then she'd always been a bit of an extrovert. On the other hand, practically everybody could be considered an outgoing person compared to Ryoga.

As Ryoga looked at her, though, it occurred to him that suddenly, he actually _did_ have several different questions he wanted to ask her.

What had it been like to pretend to be a boy for ten years? How did she even do it?

Did she ever get sick of okonomiyaki?

What did she do at night after she closed her restaurant?

Did she have any friends at school?

How was school life at Furinkan, anyway?

What did she want out of life besides being Mrs. Saotome?

For how many more years was she planning on wasting her life on Ranma when he clearly loved somebody else?

Did she think Ryoga was as weird as everyone else did?

Did she ever feel trapped, like she wished fervently to be someone else, but she could never, ever get away and—

"What's your favourite colour?" Ryoga asked her in a slightly far-away voice, ignoring Ranma's consequent protests.

"Man, what a boring question! That's almost _cheating_, it's so boring! That's not a 'Truth', not really!"

Ryoga didn't care if it was boring. He wasn't very good at entertaining people, and especially not at thinking things up under pressure, and besides...there was no way he could ask Ukyo any of those _other_ things.

Ukyo blinked at him, evidently puzzled by such an easy question. She'd imagined him to cook up something difficult— that was the point of the game, right, to keep 'em squirming?

When she looked into his eyes, however, she found herself almost blurting out that brown was her favourite colour, and she literally bit her tongue, scolding herself for zoning out on something so straight-forward. It was like that age-old "What colour was Napoleon's white horse?" joke, where your brain just completely missed the word 'white', because you were expecting it to be more difficult. Instead the brain just took a wild stab at some random answer. She'd looked into his eyes as he asked the question and she'd only seen the brown of his irises.

For some reason, though, she couldn't get herself to say blue, which was her standard answer.

Ranchan's eyes were blue.

"Red." She said flatly, and caught him nodding as if in approval, which was odd. "Okay…_that_ was easy— "

"Too easy," Ranma muttered, but this time Akane only sighed in resignation, her elbow staying by her side.

"Right, okay, let's see...oh!" Ukyo's eyes lit up. "Akane, I always wondered...how many boys have ever been fighting for you at any one time? I mean, how many at the most?"

Akane coloured, looking thunderstruck. "I...I d-don't know, it's not like I _counted_— "

Ukyo raised a sceptical eyebrow, and Akane's shoulders slumped in defeat. "Thirty-seven." Akane sighed heavily.

"Whoa!" Ukyo laughed, looking extremely amused. "You go, Sugar!"

"_Thirty-seven_?" Ranma exploded. "You never told me there were _thirty-seven_!"

"W-well, that was before I'd even met you!" Akane spluttered, growing flushed. "The ones you saw were only the most stubborn ones left at the end!"

"There aren't thirty-seven guys born in this world that have tough enough skulls to keep up with your mallet!" Ranma said, tapping his knuckle on his own forehead to underline his point.

"I'm surprised it didn't make a hollow sound when you did that," Akane said snidely, and Ukyo had to hold back a giggle. Ryoga closed his eyes; he'd just been waiting for a fight to erupt. He was too tired for this.

"And _I'm_ surprised that— "

"Ranma...she answered the question, which means it's her turn to ask the next one." Ryoga interjected pointedly, before things could get out of hand.

Akane smiled mischievously at Ranma. "Truth or Dare?"

Ranma raised both eyebrows. "We're back to dares now?"

Ukyo brightened a bit. "Oh, come on, let's do some dares! There must be _something_ we can think of?"

Akane briefly considered making him arm wrestle Ryoga, but then they'd be at it all day. "No, I think we're gonna have to do a Truth." She said with finality.

Ukyo pouted a little—it would've been fun to do a dare, the questions had been sort of boring so far—

but leaned forward, curious as to what Akane would ask.

"Hey, ain't_ I_ the one who's supposed to get to choose what I wanna—" Ranma objected, but she simply ploughed on.

"When you had to conjure up Happosai's lust aura to be able to use the Hiryuu Shoten Ha on him…" Akane began innocently.

"Yeah?" Ranma asked suspiciously.

"Where did you get the underwear from that you were wearing when you posed in those pictures?" Akane went on, a small smirk slipping. She'd always wondered a bit about that. It had looked sort of pricy, too, that underwear.

Ranma's eyes bugged out, but then he cleared his throat noisily, trying to compose himself. "I, uh…"

His eyes darted nervously between the others.

Ryoga made a weird, strangled sound, as if he was trying to hold back a belly laugh. Ukyo was hiding her grin behind her hand. Akane was just looking expectantly at him, with a carefully neutral expression.

"Well?" Akane prodded.

"Some of it I stole from Happosai…" He told them reluctantly, letting the sentence trail off, unwilling to share what he'd probably be forced to say next.

"Yes?" Akane wouldn't let it go.

Ranma sighed in irritation, vowing silently to himself that he'd get Akane back for this when it was his turn. "…and the rest was mine."

"_What_?" Akane, Ukyo and Ryoga blurted in unison.

Turning red, Ranma scowled at them. "Look, it's not as if I've bought it for fun or anything, it's just that when I'm a girl, I need— I mean, girls need to wear bras, all right? Or else my back hurts, and—" He fired off all this in a quick succession, frantically trying to defend himself, but was cut off at Ryoga finally failing very badly at containing his laughter.

It was loud and obnoxious and Ranma felt himself starting to fume. Okay, if _that's_ how he wanted to play things…

Suddenly, getting back at Akane wasn't his number one priority anymore.

"All right...now it's my turn!" Ranma rubbed his hands together with malicious intent as Ryoga's laughter gradually ended. "Truth or Dare, Ryoga?"

Ryoga swallowed, a sinking feeling turning up in his gut. He'd just made fun of Ranma's curse, and here Ranma was, in a position to ask him whatever he wanted, and he'd be forced to answer, because those were the rules of the game. Suddenly Ryoga regretted laughing. _There must be some awfully, dreadfully, horrifyingly awkward or embarrassing question he's got planned, there's no doubt about that, and in front of the girls, too— _

There was only one way out of this.

"Dare!" Ryoga exclaimed, slapping his palm down on the small table for emphasis.

The Cheshire grin spreading across Ranma's face told him he'd walked straight into a trap. "Okay, Ryoga..." Ranma leaned back in his seat, stretching his arms behind his head. "I dare you to kiss Ukyo."

"Ranma...!" Ukyo gasped.

"On the lips," Ranma went on mercilessly.

"Come _on_—" Akane started to scold him, but he paid her no heed.

"For at least ten seconds." Ranma added, with an air of delivering the finishing blow in a battle.

"What?" Ryoga finally managed to speak, but it came out as nothing but a squeak, and he instantly turned red. What the hell was Ranma _thinking_...! He heard Akane let out an exasperated 'Ranma!", but it was as if he'd momentarily gone partly deaf and it sounded like Akane was talking under water. He turned his head cautiously towards the other victim of the game, and swallowed as she came into his line of sight.

Ukyo was staring at him, blinking rapidly, nervously, obviously as shocked as he, eyelashes moving like the wings of a frightened butterfly. When their eyes met, her eyelids snapped fully open and she froze; the butterfly had been pinned.

Suddenly Ryoga felt completely at sea, he had no clue what to do— was he really supposed to...?

Ukyo gazed deep into the black of his pupils drowning in the different tones of warm brown of his irises and her breath caught as she saw it, the truth that was there; part of him actually_ wanted_ to do it.

Automatically, and completely apart from any sort of conscious thought, Ukyo licked her lips and watched as his eyes flickered down to her mouth, just for a second.

_He wouldn't do it._

…_would he?_

"It's the rules of the game, man, you hafta do it!" Ukyo heard Ranma say, obviously enjoying himself immensely, and she felt a twitch of irritation. When it came to matters like these, Ranma handled them about as delicately as his father.

_It's the rules of the game; I have to do it..._ Ryoga thought fuzzily, his entire head feeling like it'd been stuffed full of cotton.

"Last stop, Shinjuku Station!"

_Last stop, Shinjuku Station, _Ryoga thought, hearing all the voices as if they were being spoken by little tiny gnats buzzing around the ceiling lights. _Last_ _stop..._He stared at a point somewhere in the middle distance, or maybe it was at Ukyo's hair falling over the bruise on her shoulder, and he—

_Last stop!_

"We're here!" Ryoga blurted, standing bolt upright and grabbing a protesting Ranma in a headlock. "Let's go, Ranma!" He said in a falsely cheerful voice, dragging Ranma with him out of the train compartment.

"I don't know what you think you're doing, but it's _not_ funny!" Ukyo and Akane could hear Ryoga hissing to Ranma before he heaved him out of the train.

* * *

**Author's note:** I'm publishing this story in two parts because I've been holding on to this sucker for so long that I just wanted to let it loose, and the chapter was becoming a bit too long for a short story, anyway. Hopefully the next part will be done before the new millennium comes up.

Oh, and the gang's supposed to be seventeen, going on eighteen in this fic.

This is based on the manga, not the anime, which explains why only Ranma, Akane, Ryoga and Ukyo appear in this story and not everybody else as well, like in the anime episode.

The number thirty-seven (the number of people fighting for Akane) is of course a reference to that good ol' favourite, Clerks, directed by Kevin Smith. The number is repeated enough times in the movie for anyone who has seen it to get the reference. :) And no, that's _not_ what I meant Akane did with all those guys.

I needed a random number and for some reason I picked that one, and then suddenly thought, 'Hey, haven't I heard that before somewhere?', so I went and checked, and sure enough, it was that number...

**Macha:** The powdered, green tea used in the tea ceremony; works pretty well as an ice cream flavour, too.

**Mochi:** Weird, white, sticky paste made of rice, used for a number of things, one of which is Japanese confectionery. They also deep-fry it sometimes, but I've only managed to eat half of one even though they're pretty small. Extremely fattening, I've heard. Goes well with macha.

**Onigiri:** Little, compressed portions of rice, usually shaped like triangles or hockey pucks. There are many different kinds of onigiri. Some are completely wrapped in sea weed, some only have a small strip of sea weed around a part of them, some are sea weed free and some are grilled. There are many different tastes to them, also. There's mushroom onigiri, chicken onigiri, leek and onion onigiri, bamboo sprout onigiri, fish onigiri, fish egg onigiri, sweet plum onigiri…the list goes on. These are what we often buy as a quick lunch in Kyoto. I've also eaten them in Tokyo.

**Shinjuku Station:** Literally the world's biggest train, bus and taxi station, as far as I know. Please feel free to correct me. I got slightly lost there once while I was carrying way too much luggage and was all on my own, and I was _not_ in a very good mood, to say the least. That place is huge!

Since I have no idea which station you get off at in Tokyo to get to Nerima (which is in fact a real place), and since I have no idea where that ghost cave was, I just had them get off at Shinjuku; it's a pretty likely bet. They'll be taking the bus from Shinjuku to their respective homes in the next part of the story.

Thanks for reading!

Ninnik


	2. TWO

**The Exit**  
Ninnik Nishukan

* * *

The bus was just as crowded, and somehow she ended up next to him again. She caught him looking desperately around for any other seat than the one next to hers, and felt a pinch in her gut; was she really so repulsive that neither Ranma nor Ryoga wanted to sit next to her?

Shaking her head, then, she scolded herself for being so self-pitying. _He's mortified about that stupid game, that's what it is, and who could blame him? What was Ranma** thinking**…?_

…_and why didn't he tell Ryoga to kiss **Akane** instead?_ She asked herself, the treacherous thought sneaking up on her without warning.

Why, indeed?

As Ryoga finally slumped down in the seat next to her, she turned to look at him despite herself and caught the startled, brown eyes, saw him ducking his head to avoid her gaze and she squirmed a bit in her seat, sighing as she tried to make herself comfortable.

He was so different from her Ranchan— shy, evasive, nervous, daydreaming, spineless…

…_he would never have done it. Not in a million years. _

She cast a glance in his direction, found her gaze landing on the small band aid on his cheek, just below his eye, noticed the slightly red skin there before travelling up to the seemingly _constantly_ present worry knot on his brow, then down to his tensed-up shoulders.

_He would never, ever have the guts to do it. _

…_would he?_

Her gaze rested on his lips for just a moment and she found herself getting annoyed at how they didn't look dry or chapped or thin— if the world had any sense of justice, they _should_ have been revolting. But they weren't. _It might not have felt **totally** disgusting if he actually **did** do it_, she thought, and this infuriated her even more. Her eyes were lingering now, and she was gradually starting to feel like a pervert.

It might have been soft. Warm even.

_I've never been kissed before,_ she reminded herself, _so it's not that strange if I wonder about the one chance I've had to actually—_

It had always annoyed and saddened her how the girls would talk at school and she could never, ever contribute with anything to the conversation. She had never been kissed; she certainly hadn't been groped, not if you didn't count that one time when Ranma had accidentally grabbed her breasts—when he had still thought she was a _guy _and didn't even know she_ had_ any breasts, for goodness sake! And wasn't that just _so_ patheti--

Ukyo gritted her teeth and leaned her elbow on the narrow window sill and her head against the bus window, trying not to put her weight on the bruise on her shoulder. She didn't talk to or look at Ryoga for another ten minutes.

Ryoga sighed, leaning back in his seat as he tried to find a comfortable position; the bus seat was far less comfortable than the seat he'd had on the train. He was glad to be well out of Shinjuku Station, though— it was the kind of place that was so big and crowded that he'd be lost for _days_ there, never able to find the exit. Just thinking about it made him shudder. It would be oh, so nice if he could just _sleep_…but there was just nothing to lean on, since Ukyo had gotten the window seat.

Glancing sidelong at her, he regarded the taut line of her back, could just see the strict, tight line of her mouth and he sighed again. She was completely ignoring him, and maybe it was for the best. He wouldn't know what to say, anyway.

Not after _that_. Not after looking her straight in the eye after having been ordered to kiss her, and seeing the nervousness in her gaze, seeing her pink tongue darting over her lips, the very same he'd been told to—

_What would she have done if I'd done it? _He wondered idly, his head bobbing a bit as his body tried to lure it into slumber.

It was strange, really— they'd been conversing in an almost _civilized_ manner until Ranma had to open his big mouth, yet now it seemed to be _Ryoga_ she was mad at!

It just didn't make any sense! By rights she should be mad at _Ranma_! It was he who'd…who'd…

Ryoga tried to blink, but his eyelids were drooping with the weight of fatigue. The seat in front of him blurred and shifted out of focus until it started getting dark…

Ukyo gasped as a heavy weight fell on her shoulder. She snapped her face around; the sight that met her seriously frightened her.

Ryoga's head was resting on her shoulder, his eyes closed, his mouth slightly open and his thick bangs falling over her skin, the slow pace of his breath telling her he was asleep.

Her own breath caught in her throat and her frame quivered with outrage. What the _hell_ did he think he was—what the _hell_ kind of liberties did he think he could—

Raising her hand angrily, she prepared to shove him off of her—

She froze when her fingertips met with his scalp.

All across Ryoga's head were these…these _bumps_, some a bit bigger, some a bit smaller, but none of them feeling like very pleasant things to have scattered across your scalp. _There has to be at least…four, no, five…no…six of them,_ she realized, her heart sinking. _Six times…_

They were all from her spatula. She noticed him wincing in his sleep, and her hand drew back hastily out of its own volition.

Maybe Hibiki Ryoga's skull wasn't as thick as everybody thought it was.

Ryoga gave a little sigh and shifted his face slightly, causing his lips to brush against her skin. They really _were_ soft, and it made her so _angry_. Her entire body went taut when she felt his breath directly on her bare skin. Even though it was warm, it made goose bumps appear where it touched her.

Ukyo held her breath, trying not to move, biting her lip to keep from making a sound. She felt like she was playing hide and seek again, like the old days, trying to become an invisible presence by tensing up her body, in a room where the seeker would obviously see her feet sticking out from under the curtains any minute.

This could only end in awkwardness.

She let out a small squeak and was forced to take a breath when he suddenly shifted again and brought one hand to rest in the little nook in the bend of her arm, right where the skin was so thin and sensitive against her veins.

She just couldn't bring herself to use force against him, though, not after realizing what she'd done to his head, so she tried simply tuning him out, concentrating instead on the conversations on the train.

Ukyo tried distracting herself for a minute or two with a couple of middle-aged businessmen having an extremely boring conversation about some sort of project at work, when she suddenly noticed Ranma and Akane talking, two rows ahead.

"…world were you thinking?" Akane said in a hushed, but slightly agitated voice, just loud enough to hear.

"Look, it's no big deal, right?" Ranma replied in a whisper, or in what probably passed as a whisper with him, anyway. "If what you said's true, then they've probably already—"

"Ranma," Akane interjected flatly, "just because they're boyfriend and girlfriend it doesn't necessarily mean to say they've kissed yet. Maybe it's still very new. So you shouldn't have tried to get Ryoga to kiss her in front of other people…" She was quiet for a few seconds, before adding in a softer voice: "I mean, _we_ still haven't…I, uh…I mean, it's very awkward if there's people around…"

The pause was longer this time, and Ranma's voice was very serious, almost sad, when he spoke. "Yeah. There are always a lot of people around." He said, obviously having forgotten about whispering entirely. "Always."

Ukyo suddenly found that her fists were clenched so tightly that her nails had left little crescent-shaped grooves in her palms. Swallowing, she tried to make the painful, hot feelings in her stomach and on her face go away, but only felt herself reddening further until tears threatened to spill from her eyes. Her entire world had been reduced to one terrible, little fact.

Ranma thought that Ryoga was her boyfriend, and he didn't care.

Hell, he even tried to make Ryoga kiss her right there in front of him.

In fact he even seemed _happy_ about the supposed pairing, she realized, as she thought of how cheerful he'd seemed back there in the ghost cave all of a sudden, and for no apparent reason.

The only thing she could cling to was the knowledge that Ranma and Akane still hadn't kissed.

But did that actually make things any better?

Akane was the one he was sitting next to right now and being all secretive with, not her.

When Akane and Ranma moved to get off at their bus stop and turned back to wave goodbye to her and grin at her in a conspiratorial kind of way because she was sitting there stupidly with Ryoga slumped against her and a red face, and there was just _no way_ they could've interpreted that as anything but what they'd thought all along, she felt awful, awful, awful—

She felt sick, she felt exhausted, she hurt in so many places, her bruises, the scratches on her arms, but most of all, _most of all_, her head pounded with a kind of pain that had nothing to do with getting physically injured.

A bitter, vindictive little side of her attempted to convince her to leave the stupid jackass here and let him just ride around and around until he got himself lost good and well, but it was quickly disregarded.

What good would that do? And how was he even responsible for her pain?

When her bus stop finally came up, however, she found herself shaking Ryoga awake with just a _little _more force than what was strictly necessary.

"We're here! Get up!" She shouted, and felt herself almost flinch at the harsh sound of her own voice. _Calm down, calm down, calm down…_

"Wh— huh?" He blinked up at her blearily and she only got further annoyed.

"Look, I don't know where _you're_ going, but this is _my_ stop, anyway, so I'd appreciate it if you'd move!" She said, pushing at his arm.

"Oh, uh…sure…" He answered in a bewildered voice, scrambling to get out of the bus.

As the bus drove away, though, it was as if she lost all of her momentum. The other people getting off the bus were sending them curious looks, and she even recognized one or two of them as some of the regulars at Ucchan's, which only made it worse, and then there was this one little child who was even walking backwards on his way from the bus stop just so he'd be able to stare openly at them, and—

When an old man who was waiting for the bus gave them an especially startled stare, she'd had enough. "We fell down the stairs," Ukyo said in a voice dripping with false sweetness, batting her eyelashes at the man.

"Ukyo?" Ryoga stepped into her line of vision and frowned at her in a 'what-is-it-_now?'_ kind of way. He was obviously not very happy about how she'd woken him up. "What's wrong?"

"I'm just sick of…" Ukyo didn't quite know _what_ she was sick of since there were so many things to choose from, so her voice trailed off and she turned around and started walking in the direction of her restaurant. Unfortunately, he followed.

She knew he would, though. After all, where else could he go?

For a moment or two, she considered telling him the bad news in such a way that it would give him as great a shock as the one she'd received, and instantly she wondered why she was thinking all these petty little things—

The answer was easy, though. She was hurt and angry and was feeling sorry for herself, and that often made you want to dish out some hurt yourself. Anything was better than suffering alone.

"Ryoga," she began haltingly, trying to weigh her words. "On the bus, when…when you were asleep…well, I heard Ranma and Akane talking."

"About what?" Ryoga asked apprehensively. The tone of her voice made him feel like he should be bracing himself against something dreadful.

Ukyo shifted a little, suddenly feeling like she should've thought this more through first. "They…I mean, Ranma and Akane, they seem to think that we…uh…"

"What?" Ryoga tilted his head at her, trying to meet her downcast eyes.

"They think…they think we're together." She pressed out.

"Together…?" Ryoga repeated with a puzzled look.

Boys could be so dense! "They think we're boyfriend and girlfriend, all right? You and me?" Ukyo exclaimed then, her patience wearing thin. "And they just don't seem to _care_— in fact they're even _happy_ about it!" Now that she'd finally gotten the words out, she just had to keep going. "That was what it was all about there in the ghost cave when Ranma was palling around with you all of a sudden and Akane was saying how happy she was for me!"

As she'd expected, Ryoga's expression seemed frozen, his frame stiff and his eyes staring.

"Well?" Ukyo demanded huffily.

Ryoga's lips moved soundlessly for a while as if he was trying to work something out, and then his shoulders loosened a bit and his mouth snapped shut. "I see." He said finally; now he knew why Ranma had tried to be so friendly towards him.

Ukyo blinked. She'd expected some screaming, some death threats aimed towards one Saotome Ranma and just some general destruction. What was _this_?

"What?" He asked, in a somewhat thick voice, when he noticed her gawking at him.

"Why aren't you slamming your fist through the nearest brick wall or pulling up telephone poles or something?" Ukyo asked carefully.

Ryoga flushed a bit at that, and Ukyo lifted both eyebrows in surprise when she saw that Ryoga had already reached out right behind him and given the pole of the bus stop sign a good ol' one-handed squeeze. As he drew his fingers away, they saw the shape of them imbedded in the metal of the pole itself.

"Sorry," Ryoga mumbled, clearing his throat.

"Let's go before anybody else notices," Ukyo whispered and lead him away.

* * *

When they'd been walking for about a minute, Ukyo couldn't stop herself, she simply had to ask. "What are you thinking?"

Ryoga didn't need to ask her about what. He drew a breath and closed his eyes for a second or two while he contemplated his answer.

_I'm done. I'm just **done**. _He thought to himself, feeling more resignation than the numbness he'd expected to feel. He didn't even feel depressed, not any more than the regular, ever-present depression; in fact he was just…_exhausted_.

_This…is…it. _

_No further._

Today, he realized, he'd hit rock bottom. Was he really so pathetic that he'd consider spending the rest of his life in a ghost cave just to be with Akane? Was he really so desperate that he'd believe in that insane fantasy for even a second? Had he no self-respect any longer?

Maybe Ukyo was right. Maybe he really _didn't_ know how far gone he could be at times. He felt ashamed when he thought of the fact that Ukyo and Ranma had both witnessed him dragging Akane all over the place, a stupid, zonked out expression on his face.

"Ryoga?" Ukyo asked curiously.

"I'm just…I'm done. I'm not doing this anymore." Ryoga said eventually.

"What?"

"It's hopeless…"

"Oh, come on, but you always say that—"

"No, it's not even hopeless, it's just _stupid_, not seeing them for what they—it's stupid…!"

Ukyo couldn't believe her ears. "So that's it? So you're just giving up?"

Ryoga shook his head. "No, I'm just being realistic. For once," He added darkly.

The sinking sense of _awful, awful, awful_ that she'd felt on the bus came back with reinforcements. She began to feel panicky. Was she really going to have to _give_ _up_…? No, she didn't want to know, she didn't want to think it, she didn't want to admit that they— that Akane and Ranma—

"Ryoga…!" She began desperately, begging him not to go on.

"Wake up, Ukyo," He said mercilessly, and she could feel herself slowly falling apart, piece by piece. Why did he have to _say_ that? "If we actually need a plan, actually need to _trick_ them into loving us...isn't that kind of hopeless? Isn't that kind of pathetic?"

"_Pathetic" was really, **really** the last word I needed to hear right now,_ Ukyo thought as she winced.

"When I first came here," Ryoga said quietly, "I told Ranma I wanted to 'ruin his happiness'…but I'm not sure if I want to do that anymore…"

Ranma in the cave… grinning broadly and laughing happily, smashing his fist into his face, but in a half-hearted, good-natured, not-very-painful way, as if that was supposed to be the weird Ranma version of nudging a friend's shoulder or slapping them on the back in manly congratulations…

The truth was that, if forced to choose between the promise of a friendship with Ranma and the almost non-existent little spark of hope of a possibility of one day winning Akane over, Ryoga knew what he'd choose.

At first, Ryoga had been delighted whenever something bad happened to Ranma, as if it had been divine retribution for all the pain, humiliation and loneliness he himself had suffered, but at some point, he didn't quite know when, he'd started caring. It might've been during the whole Shiryuu Shoten Ha ordeal, he guessed, but probably earlier.

He didn't have to like it, but the fact was that Ryoga cared about what Ranma thought about him. He cared about whether Ranma was miserable or happy, whether he was hurt, whether he lived or died. Why else would he risk his life by leaping into a crack in the very Earth, which was just about to close around him, only so that Ranma wouldn't have to live out his life permanently cursed?

If he truly hated Ranma, he'd have let him be trapped in a body with the wrong gender forever, so that he could never marry Akane, never produce an heir to the Tendo dojo. Maybe then Ryoga would stand a chance with Akane. Somehow, though, it had never even occurred to him before later; it just hadn't even been an option to do that to him.

If he was brutally honest with himself, he had a feeling that Akane just might've married Ranma anyway and had them adopt a child. When Ranma had been as weak as a baby and rendered completely useless in taking over the Tendo dojo, she hadn't cared. She'd still wanted Ranma.

Because she did.

Love him.

She'd told P-chan as much on more than one occasion.

That was the difference between him and Ukyo and that was why they were reacting differently, Ryoga knew. He'd seen it coming a mile away; she probably hadn't. He'd witnessed more evidence of Ranma and Akane's feelings for each other that any of the other suitors. Ukyo, Shampoo, Kuno, Kodachi…nobody had seen as much as he'd seen.

"I never wanted to ruin his happiness," Ukyo said miserably, "I just wanted to get back at him and his father for what they did to me…but then I just wanted to make him happy."

"With you?" Ryoga asked.

Ukyo narrowed her eyes; she didn't like the tone he was using and what it implied. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

Ryoga shrank back, bewildered; he'd been somewhat lost in his own ponderings and this attack had been very unexpected. "Wh-what? I just—"

"You mean to say I'd have made him unhappy?" She challenged, hands bunching into fists.

Ryoga bristled. "Yes! I mean, no—"

"What?" Ukyo exclaimed, outraged, grabbing his shirt and basically pulling him off of his feet.

Ryoga yelped. "Hey! I just— I mean you're saying you wanted him to be happy but you wanted him to be happy with you, right?"

"And?" She growled.

"And that's all." He promised.

Ukyo stared at him, then felt as if all her spirit had left her. Come to think of it, his tone had been pretty much perfectly normal, hadn't it? It hadn't really sounded like the typical making-fun-of-people-in-an-arrogant-way kind of voice. "Sorry," she mumbled, dropping him to his feet. "I'm kind of high strung."

"Yeah," Ryoga agreed, looking at her worriedly. "_Really_."

When they were nearing her shop, Ukyo looked up at him askance. "I still can't help but think that you should be acting more…y'know, depressed."

He shook his head slowly. "I…I guess I'm just…it just feels a little settling, I guess, to finally know." The last time he'd seen Ranma and Akane had been at Ryugenzawa, which had been…emotional, to say the least. Out there, he'd more or less already decided not to pursue Akane anymore…until Ukyo had shown up out of nowhere and dragged him along very enthusiastically, unbeknownst to her convincing him to give it another shot and throwing him into uncertainty yet again.

But know he finally knew.

"What?" She frowned.

"Before, it was very confusing. Sometimes something would happen to make me get my hopes up, but now I know." At Ryugenzawa, it had made him sad to know the truth, but at the same time it had felt like a relief.

"What?" She tried again, impatiently.

He swallowed. "She's…she's not interested in me that way."

Ukyo looked at him incredulously. "What, so now you're gonna be all noble and give up on her?"

Ryoga's brow knitted. "It's not about being 'noble'! I'm not Kuno, for goodness sake! It's about not being _stupid_ about this for once!"

"What about all the time and effort you've spent on her?" Ukyo prodded.

"What are you trying to do here, Ukyo?" Ryoga asked, sighing irritably. "Make me feel as bad as you?"

Ukyo went very, very quiet at that, and he instantly regretted his words. Not because she looked as if she was going to hit him, but because she looked as if she _wasn't_ going to. He was horrified to see that her eyes were shiny with unshed tears. He had never, _ever_ seen her cry, and panic was rising in him like an inevitable tidal wave.

"U-Ukyo, look, I'm sorry, I…" He cast around for something to say. "Listen, I do feel bad, okay? Of course I do! I feel bitter and angry about the way I've been acting ever since this whole mess started! And of course I feel bitter about all the time I've wasted, but you're acting weird! Are you trying to make me feel even _worse_?"

Ukyo was silent for another moment before she sighed. "Maybe." She admitted in a tired voice.

"Gee, thanks." Ryoga muttered.

"Look," Ukyo said angrily, but there was a hitch to her voice. "I'm sorry, but I guess I'm just not feeling very considerate right now, okay? And it pisses me off that you're acting so calm!"

"I'm not calm." Ryoga objected.

"Oh, sure, you're awash on a sea of boiling rage!" Ukyo scoffed.

Ryoga sighed. "I'm gonna be mad, okay? I'm gonna be mad and depressed and everything one day soon when I sit down and think about it, but right now I'm just so sick of hearing my own complaints and I'm too tired to go off blasting a million Shi Shi Hokodans, all right? I don't have the energy. I've been walking and walking and I haven't slept for almost two days. I just wanna go home and sleep."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"Okay." She went on, apparently considering something. "Where do you live?"

"Huh?"

* * *

When Ukyo had brought him to his house— which, it turned out, wasn't too far away from her own, only a couple of blocks or so— for some reason she hung around, hovering behind him on the steps as he went searching under the heavy, ceramic flowerpots next to the doorstep to find a spare set of keys which he very barely ever used.

The summer vacation, which had started only a few days ago, was stretching out in front of her, long and lonely, and she felt a rush of panic.

_I need something to focus on, something to do,_ Ukyo thought frantically, and considered tomorrow's lunch rush with longing, but realized she needed something bigger, something out of the ordinary to do, something that would allow her to forget Ranma and Akane for a little while, just until she'd gotten her bearings back.

_I need something to discipline myself with, something to make me stronger, something that'll make me feel like I'm actually **doing** something, like I'm changing, something that I'm doing just for **me**, because **I** want to do it, and not because—_

She tried remembering some sort of hobby or something that she'd been interested in, once upon a time, but came up blank; all she'd ever done was to cook okonomiyaki…and she'd done martial arts.

_Martial arts…_

"Ryoga?"

"What?" He finally looked up, a little surprised to see that she was still there.

She took a breath, watching as he found his key and straightened up again. "Remember what you said about me not being able to fight without weapons?"

"…yes?" He asked apprehensively.

She leaned towards him, a determined, fierce expression in her eyes. "Teach me."

"Uh…" She _had _to have some sort of agenda. Why would she—

"Please. I'd be willing to pay you for it."

_That _got his attention. Hibiki Ryoga wasn't exactly known for wading around in cash. And Kuonji Ukyo never told him _please._ "Are you _kidding_?"

"Nope!" Ukyo shook her head.

He narrowed his eyes at her critically. "How much?"

"Well..." Ukyo began thoughtfully, "To begin with, I guess I could forget about the money you owe me for the train ticket and the bus ticket..."

Ryoga sighed in defeat. He couldn't possibly refuse her when she'd been kind enough to help him earlier, and she _knew _it. "All right."

* * *

That evening, even if he was so tired he'd gone to bed really early, Ryoga lay awake for about an hour because he couldn't stop thinking about Ranma.

Ranma still teased him like mad, still used his head as a stepping stone and still tricked him, but there had been a change at some point. He looked sort of _happy_ whenever Ryoga turned up, provided it wasn't as P-chan and Akane was bringing him into her bedroom— that was the problem right there, really. It was what made Ranma bother him incessantly, what made him jab at him whenever he could.

Ranma was always lousy at expressing his feelings, but his feelings in that matter were pretty much written in capital letters across his forehead. The reason he acted like he did was because he seemed to feel just a little threatened by Ryoga, afraid of the guy that Akane kept on saying was so nice and so polite and so considerate, while she described Ranma as a rude jerk. Ranma always tried being Ryoga's friend, but forgot all about it whenever Akane was involved. Challenging his position as Akane's fiancée was _never_ okay. It was as simple as that.

So...the logical conclusion would have to be...if there was no longer any competition for Akane's attention, Ranma would—

He already was. That was what he'd tried to do back there on the train, even if he was as ham-fisted as ever. It was hard to break out of the habit of two years, but Ranma was trying to be nicer to Ryoga. He'd looked so pleased in the ghost cave when he'd congratulated Ryoga on his and Ukyo's supposed relationship, because that eliminated him as a rival for Akane's heart, hence eliminating the reason why they could never be real friends.

Ranma wasn't "evil", despite whatever delusions Kuno had about him. Ranma had kept the secret of Ryoga's Jusenkyo curse for two years, not only refraining from telling anyone, but actually helping him keeping it a secret whenever he was in trouble. Ranma helped him with the Mark of the Gods, he'd helped him get home to his house more often than he could count, including when he thought Shirokuro was sick, and sometimes he got the impression that nothing delighted Ranma more than whenever he'd return to Nerima with a new technique, challenging him, keeping him on his toes.

Even if there were a lot of people more powerful than he that had challenged Ranma, Ryoga remained Ranma's greatest rival because he was the most persistent. He just kept on turning up, over and over, and he'd been on more adventures with Ranma than anybody else.

More or less, he was the only thing Ranma had that could be called a friend. Sure, he had his dad, the Tendos, his 'Ucchan'... but that was just different. Genma was his father, and completely untrustworthy, Soun was Genma's best buddy already, Nabiki was only after exploiting him for money and treated him more like a troublesome little brother in any case, Kasumi was more of a mother figure and too busy with the house and her family, and Akane was...well, she was much more than a friend to him, it was as simple as that. Ukyo was his childhood friend, but she'd joined the march of the fiancées, and any chance of a casual friendship ended that day. Besides, she was a girl. It was just different with girls.

You couldn't be all buddy-buddy with a girl, not like you could with a guy. Girls, even if they weren't even _remotely_ interested in you in _that_ way, demanded a little bit of special treatment. You couldn't slap a girl on the back. You couldn't comment on other girls in front of a girl. You couldn't go all out in a fight with a girl. And the list went on.

And those things, it seemed, was what Ryoga provided Ranma with. Like Ryoga, Ranma had spent a lot of his youth wandering from place to place, and even if he hadn't been lost and alone, it must've been very disruptive. As far as he knew, he and Ukyo had been the only friends from his past to come calling.

As for Mousse, he'd never attempted to be friends with Ranma. Ryoga thought of him as not a lot better than being on the level of thinking about Ranma that he himself had been when he'd first come to Nerima after Jusenkyo to seek his revenge. Mousse had calmed down slightly, but it seemed he had no wish to be Ranma's friend and still tried to get the better of him whenever he could. It was understandable, though; he'd been trying to get Shampoo to love him basically all his life and when Ranma had showed up, that impossible task had become even more impossible.

So...Ranma basically thought that he and Ukyo were dating now, which automatically made Ryoga a friend and not a rival, especially since he was dating his childhood friend, which made Ranma even happier. Ryoga knew that Ranma had never had a clue what to do about Ukyo. If he turned down Shampoo, at least she'd have her great grandmother and Mousse and the other Amazons, but what did Ukyo have? Besides, Shampoo wasn't exactly his _friend_, not like Ukyo was, so the truth was that Ranma seemed to care a little more about hurting Ukyo than Shampoo

And now, or at least so Ranma thought, the problems he'd had with Ryoga and Ukyo seemed to have fixed themselves for him. No wonder he was happy. It was a pity for him that all of his presumptions were wrong.

_That doesn't have to mean anything, _Ryoga thought. _Even if I'm not Ukyo's boyfriend, can't I still be Ranma's friend?_

The last few minutes before he fell asleep, he tried thinking of how exactly he was supposed to teach Ukyo tomorrow. What was she expecting from him, anyway? What exactly could he teach her that was worth her money? Well…he'd just have to see how good she was first, and then take it from there.

When he finally slept, he dreamt that he was trying to go to sleep on a big, fluffy cloud that had dropped from the sky, but that Ranma, Akane and Ukyo were running around the cloud, pelting each other with little plastic packets of bread, so that he only stayed wide awake and annoyed. All he asked for was some peace and quiet! Finally Ukyo got out a giant stick of Pocky and proceeded to beat him over the head with it, over and over.

Strangely enough, the brittle stick of biscuit didn't break. It was his _head_ that did, in the end; just like a porcelain cup.

Ryoga snorted in his sleep and rolled over.

* * *

Ukyo couldn't sleep. The moment when she'd found out about Ranma's true feelings about her kept playing over and over in her mind like some sort of broken record.

The fact that _her_ happiness— or what he'd _assumed_ was her happiness, anyway— made _Ranma_ happy had to count for something with her because it showed he cared, but the fact that he didn't necessarily want her to find happiness with _him _had hurt.

It didn't really matter who he loved anymore, because he didn't love _her, _not that way. He could end up with Akane, Shampoo, whoever it was— most probably Akane, though, Ukyo thought, smirking to herself; if she had the satisfaction of seeing him reject _that_ bimbo, it would really be _something_ at least, it would prove it hadn't been about who was the most feminine— but no matter who he ended up with, it wouldn't be _her_.

Of course, in her heart of hearts she'd seen it coming. She'd hung around Ranma long enough to realize that for all of her attempts she was getting nowhere with him. But it didn't hurt any less even if you _knew_ it was going to happen _before _the nurse gave you the flu shot.

She had two choices now. There was always more than one choice.

She could either moon around, moping about him and bemoaning her fate and all the wasted days for a few months— incidentally wasting even _more_ days— until she either felt better or did some crazy thing…_or _she could get her rear in gear and actually start doing something for _herself_.

Like Ryoga had told her, even though it wasn't exactly happy news, at least it felt sort of settling, finally knowing the truth about where she stood with Ranma. Now she didn't have to keep trying and trying because now she knew it was all completely futile, like ramming your head into a rubber wall in an attempt to make a dent in it. A rubber wall wouldn't notice you no matter how many times you pounded your skull against it, but a person most certainly should, and he _hadn't_ noticed. It was his own fault.

These thoughts that were plaguing her weren't going to simply go away just because she wanted them to— she knew she was going to wonder about herself and him and the other girls for months, or if she was so unlucky, years to come. All of this wasn't something you just forgot.

What was going on in that head of his? What had she done or not done to make him not be interested in her in that way? From time to time, she knew she was going to ask herself questions like these, and she knew that she'd probably even cry sometimes.

Tomorrow wasn't going to be one of those days, however, she decided, even if tonight was. Tomorrow she was going to start shaping up, and it was nice and reassuring, knowing for certain that it wouldn't be for him. For once, it would be for nobody's sake but her own.

If you didn't have self respect, her father always said, you didn't have anything.

Ukyo knew she had to sleep if she was going to be in any kind of condition to go training tomorrow. Despite telling herself this, though, she couldn't sleep for another four hours. She was going to be in _such_ a bad mood tomorrow.

Around four or five a.m., before she drifted asleep, Ukyo wondered if Ryoga actually _knew_ how to teach martial arts or not.

* * *

**Author's note:** I had to make a correction in this chapter, where Ryoga searched through his backpack to find the keys to the front door of his house— I changed it to him looking for the key under some flowerpots instead, because he'd lost his backpack in the lake, so how was it even possible for him to still be carrying it? I'm a bubble head for overlooking that, once again only focusing on some sort of narrative point and forgetting all about logic.

Thanks to O.T. Hill for noticing.

I guess I wanted a slightly less mature and more bickering Ryoga/Ukyo this time around. Maturity is reserved for Omiyage. ;)

* * *


	3. THREE

**The Exit**

Ninnik Nishukan

* * *

As a horrible cacophony erupted downstairs, Ryoga sat bolt upright in bed; it took him a few seconds to realize that somebody was ringing the door bell and banging on the door—_both_ at the _same time_! It couldn't be his parents; they each had a house key.

More or less tumbling out of bed, he pulled on his pants, threw on a discarded, old T-shirt from the floor and ran out of his room and downstairs, so shaken up that he evidently even forgot to get himself lost.

As he opened the front door, the sight that met him was Ukyo, gym bag in hand, looking quite flustered, slightly sweaty and not to mention irritated.

"U-Ukyo? What are you doing here this early?" He asked in a groggy voice.

"Don't tell me you just got up?" She let out a huff. "Do you have _any_ idea what time it is?"

"Uh…no?" He shook his head slowly, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes with his knuckles.

"It's gone past four already!" She exclaimed.

"Oh. Well…looks like I needed to catch up on some sleep, then…" He mumbled.

_So do I_, Ukyo thought, _but I still had my restaurant open during the lunch rush!_ "Well?" She looked at him expectantly.

"Well, what?"

"Are you gonna train me or not?"

Ryoga blinked; it looked like she'd really been serious about it, then. "I guess…just, uh, I could really need some breakfast…"

For a second or two, Ukyo looked like she was about to get annoyed again, but then she took in his horribly messy hair and bare feet and sighed, relenting. "Okay. More like a late lunch, though," she added, not quite under her breath.

Why she was in such a mood, Ryoga could only guess to. The best approach would probably just be to refrain from comment, he figured. He shifted a little, gesturing for the hallway. "Uh…if you wanna come in, just…um…are you hungry?" He added, remembering his manners.

She considered this briefly before shaking her head. "No, but a little something cold to drink would be nice, anyway…I feel like I'm dying out here…!" She sighed irritably as she brushed a few tendrils of damp hair out of her face.

He stuck his head out the door, looking around, feeling the air. "Huh. Yeah, it _is_ kinda hot out."

"Yeah." She echoed.

They stood looking dumbly at each other for a while before Ryoga sprang into action. "Please, come in," He offered, ushering her into the house.

* * *

"Do you think I'm, y'know…pretty?"

It only took five minutes into one of his very, _very_ seldom social visits from a girl before said girl had started asking him complicated questions. He'd been standing by the kitchen counter, calmly fixing them both some ice tea and himself some breakfast, lost in thought and humming under his breath because he was glad to be home for once, and then she just _had_ to go and throw him _that _curveball!

"_What_?" Ryoga knew right away that this was one of those questions he'd heard that women asked that there was no right answer to; you were in trouble no matter _what _you said! Turning around, she saw her sitting at the kitchen table, self-consciously fiddling with the tablecloth.

"I know it's stupid," Ukyo said apologetically. "I just really need to know."

"Wh-why would you need t-to know if I…?" Ryoga asked nervously, his Adam's apple bobbing.

Ukyo sighed heavily. "Listen, you directionless idiot, I'm not coming on to you! I just need an objective opinion from a guy about my appearance!"

"Oh." Ryoga looked relieved and insulted at the same time.

"Well? Why aren't you answering?"

Ryoga didn't have to think twice about it. "Because I wouldn't be able to give an objective opinion."

"What?" Ukyo could feel a faint blush springing to her cheeks in her shock. What could he possibly be _thinking_…? "Why?"

"Because my opinion would be highly influenced by the fact that I know that if I got the answer wrong you might make an attempt at beating me into my own kitchen floor." Ryoga explained dryly.

"You stubborn jackass!" Ukyo snapped. "Just answer the question!"

Ryoga felt a drop of perspiration run down his temple. There was just no way that this was going to have a nice ending to it. "And you're not gonna hit me?" He asked cautiously.

Ukyo searched his apprehensive face and swallowed, feeling almost worse than after the bus yesterday, but only almost. _I'm getting to be worse than Akane_, she thought, _trying to threaten a compliment out of a guy like this… _"I'm sorry," Ukyo said meekly, "It's just that it…it would mean a lot to me. I just don't really know what I think about myself right now, so it would be nice to get second opinion." She admitted.

Regarding her suddenly softened features, her fierce frown gone, her teeth no longer gritting in annoyance, her hands no longer clutching her spatula threateningly, Ryoga could almost come to appreciate that she was in fact a rather attractive girl. She had long, long, dark hair framing a finely featured face, big, soulful, dark-lashed eyes and a delicate mouth— well, it seemed delicate now that it had settled and her lips weren't stretched to their fullest as she opened her mouth wide to yell at him as loudly as she possibly could— and like all Ranma's other suitors, she had the firm, trim body of a martial artist, though the outfit she was wearing today showed that she definitely had some curves as well...

"You're pretty when you're not screaming orders into my face." He settled on this conclusion.

Ukyo blinked at him in bafflement. "Okay…?"

"Like now." He added by way of demonstration, pointing at her. "Now you're pretty."

"Uh…" Ukyo shrank back a little, abashed at the way he was pointing directly at her, especially now that he'd made her face flush.

"Is…is that good enough?" Ryoga asked anxiously.

She just nodded.

"Good, because it's the best I can do." He relaxed a little. "Complimenting a girl isn't exactly what I do for a living."

"Right." Ukyo agreed absently.

"So, I hope you feel better…?" He asked hopefully. He was still kind of mentally if not physically tired and really wasn't up to dealing with a depressed Ukyo all day.

"A little." She assured him. "Thanks."

He sighed. "No problem…"

"Um...Ryoga?"

"What?"

"And…" Ukyo swallowed, not sure if she should ask the next question or not, but far too curious not to, now that she finally had the chance. "And on the train…yesterday…would you have kissed me?" She asked haltingly, her voice small.

She saw his shoulders twitch and knew she'd just surprised the hell out of him.

Ryoga cursed inwardly; she just _had_ to ask that question! As if it hadn't been humiliating enough being ordered to kiss _her_ of all people and in a public place of all places and with _Akane_ and _Ranma_ of all people as on-lookers— now she had to go and make him answer a question he himself didn't even know the answer to?

If he said no, she'd be offended and hurt, but if he said yes, it would all get very awkward and she would think he was some sort of weirdo and was going to stalk her or something…so what in the world was he supposed to say?

Suddenly, inspiration struck.

"M-maybe." He said in a quiet voice, after a beat. "If I'd known if it was welcome or not...maybe."

"Really?" Ukyo asked uncertainly.

Ryoga shrugged, keeping his gaze fixed on the floor. It was the truth.

"Why?"

"No real reason." Ryoga brushed it off. The tips of his ears going red and he still wouldn't look at her. It was _such_ a difficult, awkward topic! "I guess because…b-because I've never…kissed a girl before and because there could be…w-worse people to kiss." Why was he telling her these things? _She_ didn't have to know he'd never kissed a girl before! _Nobody_ needed to know that! Now she'd make fun of him and—

"Okay."

"_Okay_?" He parroted incredulously.

Ukyo gave him an odd look. "Um, yes?"

Ryoga brightened. "So that's a good enough reason, right?"

She nodded firmly. "It's good enough."

Placing a cup of ice tea in front of her, he frowned as he suddenly thought of something. "I _was_ going to teach you to fight _without_ weapons, right?"

"Right," Ukyo said as she gratefully sipped the cold beverage. "What's your point?"

Ryoga sat down by the table with his plate and cup and nodded meaningfully at the giant spatula resting against his kitchen wall.

Ukyo reddened slightly. "Force of habit," she grumbled into her ice tea.

Ryoga grinned fleetingly and dug into his lunch.

Except for the gentle sound of the chopsticks against the plate as he ate, there was silence for a while before Ukyo spoke. "The pattern on your kitchen floor looks like chopsticks…" She commented moodily.

Ryoga rolled his eyes. This wasn't going to be easy.

* * *

"We'll take it a little easy today since we're still all covered in gauze and stuff." Ryoga told her when they'd moved to the vacant lot beside his house. "And now…come on and show me what you can do!" He challenged.

"Okay!" Ukyo said enthusiastically, readying herself for charging at him.

"_Without_ the spatula!" He added, exasperated. He heard Ukyo cursing quietly as she flung her spatula to one side. "And you accuse _me_ of being scatterbrained?" He couldn't help himself; he simply had to say it.

Ukyo growled and charged.

* * *

They'd gone through a bit of basic sparring…well, it _had_ been basic, but it had been going on non-stop for more than fifty minutes before she had to call it quits. It had been _exhausting, _especially because it was so hot out! And _that_ was supposed to be his idea of _taking it easy_?

It seemed as though she was a bit quicker and agile than Ryoga, but she didn't have the strength and stamina that he possessed in bundles; nothing seemed to touch this guy, he just went on and on! Apparently standing behind a grill all day wasn't as good for your health as constantly running in a crisscross pattern around Japan. "How was that?" She asked, panting as she stood bent double, resting her hands on her knees.

Ryoga stared; did she know that what she was doing was giving him a pretty good view down her— he could see her sports bra, peaking out a little from her thin, sleeveless top— he could see her, her cleavage, covered in a delicate layer of sweat—

Swallowing, he deliberately turned his back to her as he took a swig out of his water bottle, his hand shaking.

"It w-wasn't bad," Ryoga said, clearing his throat as heat rose to his face, and most prominently his nose; luckily he hadn't gotten a nosebleed, though. "But you need to build up your strength and stamina." Ukyo had agility and speed where she didn't have strength, and she'd avoided him somewhat easily, but when he did get a hit in—or, rather, when he even dared hitting a girl— she didn't take it quite as easily. Also, she wore herself out rather faster than him; it looked like she hadn't been doing any really hardcore training for a while.

Ukyo glared at him. "I noticed, thank you!"

"Hey, you _asked_!" He protested.

"I can't believe I'm _paying _for this…" Ukyo muttered as she stood up, dusting herself off and irritably snatching the water bottle from Ryoga, drinking deeply.

"Also," Ryoga went on, ignoring her comment and her rude behaviour; he himself knew how it could feel to have your abilities evaluated. "I riled you up way too easily with that insult before we began. You can't let yourself lose your temper like that."

Ukyo gaped, staring at him as if he'd just sprouted a propeller from his back and was circling around the chimney of his house. "_Me_? _I _need to control my temper? Coming from you, that _is_ an insult! Have you _seen_ yourself fighting with Ranma? You lose your head completely if he just calls you a name!"

The blush exploded on his face like a red paint bomb. "I do _not_!" She couldn't know what those names that Ranma called him really meant, right? _Right?_

Ukyo grinned evilly. "Am I supposed to reply with a 'you do _too_!' now?"

This time, it was _he_ who charged.

* * *

So, he'd obliged her and had started training her in fighting without weapons. And she was getting _good_. Even after just the four days he'd so far actually managed to stay in Nerima before getting himself horribly lost somewhere, she was getting good.

She would come running over to his house every day before or after work and he'd been utterly perplexed. The sight of someone being that excited over spending time with him was a foreign concept to him. She'd been eager, she'd been enthusiastic, and after the first session or two, she'd carried him right along with her on the current. He'd felt cheerful for the first time since he could remember, he'd begun looking forward to seeing her, and he'd never smiled this much during training before.

It had the shape and feel to it of a game. A serious game, a dedicated game, but a game nonetheless. They'd been laughing— or mostly, _she'd_ been laughing at him, but anyway, laughing _had_ been involved— they'd been egging each other on, made each other continue, made each other push themselves harder when in reality they'd been too tired to go on. It'd just been too interesting to stop, that was all.

They'd started doing exercises to make her tougher, stronger, and she responded to them nicely, learned very quickly. She was brilliant. The best student he could ask for, even though she still had a long way to go. When he thought about her wasting away her potential like that—

If only she had more free time, so she could get better. As it was, they'd trained whenever she had time to get away from her restaurant, which she insisted on having open for business almost every day now that it was her summer vacation and she didn't have to go to school, and he knew it must've been tiring her out.

If they continued like this for more than a week or two, there was always the risk that she might collapse from straining herself too much. Then again, if he really managed to build up her endurance they way he hoped, she would be able to withstand it.

Still, she was getting so _good_ at it. And besides, teaching somebody something that he actually felt confident at was a nice experience. He hadn't done that since he'd attempted teaching Akane martial arts gymnastics, but even he had to agree with Ranma that Akane hadn't exactly been the most, uh…graceful participant in the art he'd ever seen. And she certainly hadn't paid him for his troubles— not that he'd expected or demanded payment, either, though. The confidence that he'd felt when teaching Akane had been nice, however, and it was exactly how he felt now. Martial arts were one of the few things he tended _not _to be too nervous about. He wasn't used to receiving this much respect from Ukyo, either.

He didn't even become nervous when his neighbour, Mister Kobayashi, who sometimes used to step outside for a smoke because his wife didn't allow smoking in the house, sat and watched them practice from across the street a couple of times.

Ten minutes into their very first session, Ukyo had understood very clearly that her worries about his teaching abilities had been for naught. Ukyo had been bewildered at the odd change that seemed to come over Ryoga when they were dealing with martial arts.

In a conversation about social matters he'd either babble her head off in his nervousness, revealing way too much, or he'd just clam up completely, but when he was teaching her things like how to use her opponent's strength, how to angle and how to move her fists so she wouldn't hurt herself and where to hit to do the most damage the fastest to get out of a pinch— well, she'd never seen him with this much confidence! He seemed like a completely different person, almost.

It wasn't as if she feared he was taken over by a Pod Person or anything, it was just that he carried himself a bit differently and actually spoke in complete sentences. He was a pretty good teacher, not too strict, but far from lenient, and it made for interesting sparring sessions, and it made it easier for her to take him seriously as a teacher and easier for her to respect him.

He didn't hold back a lot just because she was a girl. He didn't go easy on her, telling her there were things she could and couldn't do because of her gender; if she wanted to learn something, she simply had to ask and he'd try his best to teach her.

She figured it was because he'd been on the receiving end of her wrath enough times to make him unable to think of her as some delicate little flower or something, like a lot of male martial artists tended to feel about their female colleagues.

He could tell he was pulling his punches a little, though. Obviously he'd been brought up under the same School of No Hitting Girls that Ranma had studied under. She should probably be mad about it, but at the same time it felt a little flattering to be treated like a girl. It was a gentlemanly thing to do.

Besides, she knew how frighteningly strong he truly was and she wasn't keen on ending up with all of her ribs broken and her arm in a cast. She had a restaurant to run, after all.

Before their session started today, she finally had to ask about his behaviour. As he stood next to her, waiting for her to finish as she sat on the curb beside the vacant lot, lacing up her shoe, she looked up at him. "Ryoga?"

"Yeah?"

She got to her feet as she wondered how to articulate her curiosity. "Um, I was just wondering…how come you always seem so different when we're doing this?"

He looked slightly confused. "What do you mean, different?"

She rolled her shoulders, getting ready. "I dunno, more confident."

Expecting him to blush and be all shy about it, she felt nonplussed when he simply cocked his head to one side, frowning a little in thought. "I guess…I guess it's because this is the one thing I know I'm good at." He told her by way of explanation. "Everything else tends to be hard for me, but martial arts is where I've proven that I can do things that nobody else can do."

Ukyo raised both eyebrows, clearing her throat pointedly. "Except Ranma."

Ryoga flinched. "Except _Ranma_," He admitted grumpily. "Still, I can hold my own against some of the best there are and I've learned some techniques that are pretty damn powerful." He looked down fixedly at his feet for a moment before returning his gaze to her. "I feel like when it comes to martial arts, I can basically do anything as long as I try hard enough, and I always do."

Ukyo nodded slowly. It was an unusually cocky speech for Ryoga, but she let it slide exactly because this _was_ Ryoga; had he been talking about anything else, girls, school, his future, whatever, he'd be _anything_ but confident about it.

"Let's go," Ukyo said, walking across to one side of the vacant lot.

The training session had started.

Twenty minutes later, her arms were already covered with tiny bruises as she was being re-introduced quite painfully to exactly how she s_houldn't_ be blocking people's attacks; this was the one thing she'd sadly failed to grasp completely. She'd always been able to rely on her spatula taking all the blows and had rarely been forced to use her bare arms before. Obviously starting to feel bad over the state of her arms, Ryoga suggested they take a break from blocking and move over to practicing how to give somebody a good old-fashioned judo throw.

Now _this_ she knew. She knew how to do it, but unfortunately she tended to lack the muscle power to flip her opponent over if he or she were much bigger than herself. Ryoga was quite well-muscled and had a broad frame, but since he wasn't _that_ much taller than her, she could just about flip him over without straining herself all too much. Ryoga, however, lifted her like a feather as always, and the world seemed to slip into slow motion as she fell backwards and eventually hit the ground.

He hadn't expected her to struggle while he was doing it, however; a well-placed foot tripped him up so that he tumbled with her and fell ungracefully on top of her. His face burning like a furnace due to the awkward position he seemed to find himself in, he shakily tried to lift himself up on his arms so he could get up from her as quickly as possible, but the sound of her voice, alluring, made him freeze up.

"Ryoga?"

"Hmm?" His eyes looked slightly glazed over as he stared openly down at her, lying below him, her face and her bangs damp with perspiration, her long, dark ponytail trailing across the grass, her chest rising and falling with her breath— which he couldn't help but notice was making her breasts move in all sorts of fascinating ways— and her eyes sparkling with merriment. He gulped.

Ukyo looked up at him, her eyes travelling across him out of their own will. It was as hot as ever outside, and he was only wearing a thin muscle shirt, which was already covered in sweat. The muscles in his arms tightened as he held her wrists above her head, his heavy bangs limp with sweat and his dark eyes advertising his distraction as he regarded her. This looked like the time to strike! She smiled coyly, her eyes narrowing impishly. "Truth or dare?"

Ryoga sucked in a breath, shock written across his face. "Wh-wha—"

She could already feel his grip weakening with her clever diversion tactics. Swinging her leg up and planting her foot firmly in his stomach, she kicked out for all she was worth, twisting her wrists as she went, forcing him to let go of them, and flinging him off of her and onto the dusty ground. The odd, sharp sound he made told her that she'd just knocked the wind out of him. With a whoop of triumph, she jumped to her feet and started dancing around.

"Hah! I _got_ you, Hibiki!"

"Y-you _tricked_ me!" Ryoga exclaimed, looking dazed.

"Hey, we're doing _anything goes_, right?" Her attempt at shrugging innocently was rather spoiled by her giant, smug grin.

"You…you _bitch_!" Ryoga blurted, the complete and utter humiliation burning hotly in his mind as he got to his feet. How could he have fallen for _that_? How stupid _was_ he? And how could she be taking advantage of his insecurities while they were doing _this_, the one field were he felt self-assured? Gods, he was just getting to be oh, so very tired of people toying with his shyness when it came to the other gender! Ukyo was going to_ pay_!

Ukyo only started laughing loudly. "You need to control your _temper_, Hibiki!" She shouted, skipping away from him when he started towards her, his fists cocked. Knowing now that she was faster, she grinned tauntingly at him and danced away playfully. "You'll never catch me!"

Ryoga growled and ran after her, accelerating surprisingly fast. Ukyo let out an involuntary, embarrassing little squeak as she caught sight of the human bulldozer thundering towards her and took off at a run, jumping onto the first roof top she spotted. Unfortunately, he was right on her tail.

Okay, so Hibiki Ryoga seemed to be able to able to run just a _little_ faster when he was really pissed off…

On and on the chase went, over rooftop after rooftop, until Ukyo had had enough and decided to turn back. Jumping down from the last house, she confused Ryoga when he followed off of the roof and she suddenly turned right around, dodging and weaving past him before she jumped right back up on the roof and started running back where they'd come from. Judging from his loud curses, he hadn't expected that, either. Oh my, wasn't _she_ just full of surprised today?

It gave her some leverage, but not much; it didn't take long before she could hear his furious footsteps behind her again. A giddy laughter bubbled up in her; she hadn't been chased like this since grammar school! Even though the guy who was running after her was someone who could make giant boulders explode without as much as breaking a sweat, she just couldn't help laughing.

Hearing Ukyo's laughter ringing out over the rooftops only made Ryoga feel angrier and more humiliated. When they'd almost reached the vacant lot and his house again, running across some neighbour's lawn, Ryoga decided to finish it once and for all and simply jumped at her and tackled her around her waist. It was quite satisfying, really, hearing her gasp as her breath was knocked out of her like she had done to him.

"Now," he panted as he pinned her down. "_Now_ who's g-got…who?"

Ukyo gasped and wheezed for air as she struggled beneath him. "J-jeez, Ryoga…you didn't…didn't have to…take it _that_ seriously...!" She panted as well, trying to turn around. "Now let me go, you jerk!"

He flipped her around, scowling down at her. "Say you're sorry first!"

Ukyo frowned at him. "It was only a joke." She couldn't quite force the defiance she wanted into her voice, for some reason.

Letting go of her wrists, he looked away, his bangs heavy in his eyes. "I don't…I don't like jokes like that." Ryoga told her quietly. He was still keeping her from moving much by straddling her legs, and she swallowed as she could feel him trembling quite badly against her. He wasn't just angry; he was _hurt_, his dignity thrown to the dogs.

"Listen," Ukyo began hesitantly, embarrassed on both their behalves, "I'm sorry, I just didn't think…I'm sorry, okay?"

"R-really?" He met her gaze reluctantly, looking too vulnerable for her own liking; this wasn't the Ryoga she knew! Or maybe she just _didn't _know him? If she'd known he wasn't going to take a joke she would've never have done this…because it _hadn't_ been a cruel joke, right? It had been _funny_, right? Teasing him like that hadn't been wrong, right? _Right?_

_Wrong._

"Really." Ukyo nodded, trying to smile encouragingly, which wasn't very easy right then, what with the sudden, overpowering feelings of guilt and all.

Ryoga just sat there, gazing down at her with a strange look in his eyes, chewing his bottom lip in a sort of faraway manner for a while. Just when she'd started getting _really_ nervous, he suddenly swooped down out of the blue, fumbled his way to his lips as he tried to avoid bumping into her nose, and then he _kissed_ her, smack dab, right on the lips!

"Nnn!" The unexpected intrusion made her attempt an objection, but it was rather hard to speak as he was covering her mouth with his and he was…his lips were…warm and soft and moist, just like she'd thought…and— and she gave in to him, muscles unclenching. "Nnn…"

As he leaned further forward, easing his weight off of her tired legs and beginning to kiss her in earnest, some part of her brain decided it was time to respond. Sliding her hands up his bare arms, clutching his solid biceps as her fingers found them; she pulled him closer and hummed her willingness into his mouth. Even though he obviously wasn't quite sure how to do this, and even though they were both sweaty, dusty and dishevelled, the simple warmth, the flesh, the intimate contact just made it so— this was…this was so _good_…

Ryoga moaned with the relief of being accepted, his nerves melting away as she opened her mouth to him, drawing him closer instead of pushing him away. Pulling back briefly to draw a breath and wet his lips, he re-connected them at the mouth before she even had any time to notice his absence. It felt like every little hair on his body stood on end as he lost himself to the delicious, hot, wet, sucking pressure of their lips moving against each other, revelling in the salty taste of the sweat on her lips, the only thing barely anchoring him to this Earth her tight grip on his arms—

"_What are you doing on my property_?"

The world came rushing back with the nasty scare of suddenly acquiring an audience.

"Nngh?" Ryoga lifted his head, looking at the intruder blearily. It appeared to be the elderly man living across the street from his house, Kobayashi.

"Get the hell out of here before I call the—!" Kobayashi quieted abruptly. "What the— _Hibiki_? Is that _you_?" He squinted at his young neighbour, lying prone on his lawn; on top of that girl he'd been sparring with, no less! "What are you doing here?"

Ukyo, growing frustrated at his inaction, shoved Ryoga off of her and grabbed his arm, pulling him upright. "Come on, you jackass, let's go!" She hissed, dragging him along after her as she made a break for his house.

"Sorry, sorry, sorry!" Ryoga wailed, apologizing to his puzzled neighbour even as he was being pulled away. Would his humiliation know no boundaries today?

* * *

"S-so…" Ukyo began timidly.

"So, uh…yeah…" Ryoga still couldn't believe he'd actually done it, let alone be ready to actually deal with any consequences yet.

Having escaped, they found themselves back in his kitchen, and neither of them had _any_ idea what to do. Ryoga was searching his mind in a panic, desperately trying to figure out something to say. Somehow, offering her tea again felt like a lame gesture after what had transpired. Besides, right now he didn't think he'd even be able to carry the tea cup over to her without spilling half the contents.

"Wh-what are we…um…supposed to…" He asked haltingly. He'd always imagined his first kiss to be slow, careful, almost a planned event, set during some sort of romantic date— not him wrestling a girl to the ground because she'd been teasing him during a sparring session and then kissing her on a complete impulse! Not that it hadn't been any good, because it had— that just wasn't the point…!

"I…I think we should take a shower." Ukyo suggested. It was the only thing she could think of to say, seeing as she was covered in sweat, dust and grass stains and seeing as she was trying not to look at him. Showering would require that she moved to another room, which would be a good thing. Ryoga suddenly kissing her had come as one of the biggest shocks in her life! She hadn't actually minded it as it was happening, sure, but that wasn't the point!

"_Wh-what_?" He exclaimed, sitting up so abruptly that his chair fell over, clattering noisily on the kitchen floor.

Ukyo's face coloured, partly with anger, but mostly because she instantly knew what he was thinking about. "I didn't mean _together_, you absolute…you…_you_!" She spluttered, managing to get quite a lot of venom into just one syllable, Ryoga thought. It sounded like she'd just said a particularly bad word, and not what she'd actually said.

"I didn't mean— I just m-misunderstood!" He pleaded, cowering. Why was everything he said somehow the wrong thing with her? "You didn't have to get so _angry_!"

Ukyo slugged him in the arm. "You didn't have to _kiss_ me!" She retorted, taking a blind stab at him.

She was alarmed by the way his face fell then, his shoulders sagging and his eyes radiating such disappointment that it felt like a tangible presence in the room. "Is that why you're mad at me?" His voice sounded so dead to her, so devoid of hope.

"No, I— oh, for goodness sake, would you _stop_ looking so sad!" She ordered, feeling absolutely wretched. "Don't you know that I— that it— do you have _any_ idea how _confused_ I've been this past week, ever since we went to that stupid ghost cave and I heard that he— that he doesn't—?" She clutched her head in frustration. "And now_ this_! Do you think I have any idea how I'm supposed to _feel_ about all this?"

To his own horror, tears were beginning to form in his eyes, prickling and hot. "Well, I don't know, either! I just _did_ it! I'm sorry! I just _did_ it!" This wasn't exactly how he'd imagined the aftermath of his first kiss would be! This was _awful_! Why did everything he touched always turn out wrong?

Ukyo sighed. "_Why_ did you do it?"

"How in the world should _I_ know?" He demanded in a thick voice. "I just wanted to, so I did it!"

Ukyo looked at him disbelievingly. "You just _wanted_ to?"

Ryoga nodded, avoiding her eyes. He could probably come up with some other reasons, like the fact that she was fascinating and utterly provocative, always working him up into some sort of fit, and the fact that she'd looked too appealing to resist, lying there all sweaty with her hair in a tangle, her breath rapid and her eyes bright, but he knew he wouldn't be able to get any of those things out without sounding like some sort of pervert, and the core of the matter was that…that he'd just _wanted _to.

_Well,_ she thought, astonished at how logical it sounded despite its banality; _what reason **should** there really be for a kiss other than the fact that you want to? _

Her gaze softening, Ukyo stepped closer to him and touched his arm carefully. "Ryoga…?" She murmured, and as he lifted his face and was about to answer, she took her chance and pressed her open mouth against his. When his shoulders sagged this time, it wasn't because of disappointment. Embracing her, he sighed against her mouth moving against his as she hugged him back, her palms on his back warm through the thin cotton T-shirt separating her hands from his skin. His hands sliding down to her waist, he took notice of the nice, curvy slope they travelled across.

Breathing hard, she broke off the kiss and leaned against him, holding him to her. "It's better this way…isn't it?" She asked him in a soft voice that sounded so little like the Ukyo he knew that he felt it necessary to check to see if it was really her.

"What…what way?" He replied, trying to catch his breath as well.

"Not lying down on somebody's lawn," She chuckled. "And… and standing up like this, I mean…it's just easier to, to make things work…you know?"

He didn't have anything to say, he just nodded against her hair; she could hear his breath hitch in his chest before he clutched her to him and virtually _attacked_ her mouth with his own. Giving a sort of overwhelmed moan, she threw herself into the kiss with all she had, surprising him by slipping her tongue past his lips and rubbing it against his. He screwed his eyes shut with the sensations running through him as she started sucking gently on the tip of his tongue. When she finally released his tongue, he gave her a hard, lingering open-mouth kiss before her knees buckled and he had to ease her into a kitchen chair as he was barely standing, himself.

"I was wondering what this would be like…!" She said giddily after they'd been allowed some oxygen.

"Hmm?" He looked questioningly down at her from where he was hunched above her, leaning against the kitchen table.

"After the game, you know…I kinda couldn't stop myself from wondering what would've happened." She confessed shyly. "It was just really unexpected that Ranma would suggest something like that!"

Ryoga nodded absently. "I think it would've been awful."

"_What_?" _There_ she was, the Ukyo he knew, hands curling like claws into the front of his shirt, teeth bared in a snarl, her voice going dangerously low. He'd been wondering how long it would be before she got mad again. Suddenly, he just couldn't keep from grinning.

"Having my first kiss in front of Ranma on a train full of nosy people isn't exactly _my_ idea of a good time," He said bluntly.

Her fingers uncurled from his shirt. "Oh." Then she grinned as well. "But tackling me in a fit of rage and making out with me on your neighbour's lawn _is_?"

As predicted, his face went bright red. "A-at least I can say that nobody _forced_ me to do it," He shot back defiantly.

"Which is more than_ I_ can claim," Ukyo quipped gleefully, never missing a beat.

"U-Ukyo!" He cringed, shame shining in his eyes.

"Oh, come _on_! I was just _joking_!" She protested.

"Not funny," He growled, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

"Okay," she gave in, "no more of those kinds of jokes today, all right?"

"Fine." He agreed, a bit reproachfully.

Satisfied, she patted his arm as she gave him a short peck on the lips, and then picked up her bag, turned on her heel and went to the door. "I think I'll take my shower at home."

"Y-you're leaving?" Ryoga asked in a small voice.

"I'll be back tomorrow," she replied happily, "I'm still paying you to teach me how to fight properly, remember?"

"Oh." He blinked. "Right." He brightened. "So…so that means I'll see you again?"

She smiled at him. "Count on it."

As she started towards her home, Ukyo had to take one last look across the street at the lawn, looking slightly worse for wear in one particular spot.

Who'd ever think she'd get her first kiss by rolling around in somebody's front yard with Hibiki Ryoga of all people? She licked her lips, smiling to herself with feminine appreciation as she could still taste his lips and as she remembered how it had felt. There was a tingle in her gut as she thought about it; who would have ever believed that he'd have the courage to take the initiative like that? It was kind of impressive, really. And exciting.

She shook her head, smiling again.

Life was weird. And good. Good and weird.

Of course, she wasn't suddenly trouble free just because of this; her issues with Ranma weren't going to away just like that, but at least now she had something to look forward to, something that was just hers and didn't focus around him. Even if she had no idea what it was, how it happened and what was going to come of it.

Sometimes you had to do things just because you wanted to.

* * *

Ryoga's body, sitting in the kitchen, suddenly reeled his mind down from floating on Cloud Nine as his stomach made a loud sound to tell him that training all afternoon and then getting his first, second and third— and fourth?— kiss had given him a formidable appetite. He began rummaging through the kitchen cabinets looking for something to eat. Hopefully there would be something there other than instant ramen.

A five minute search yielded nothing but a scary-looking bag of miso paste and a packet of biscuits that were both past their expiration date and three portions of instant ramen, but this didn't bother him one bit— even if it was really too hot to eat ramen— as he was now filled with a warm, fluffy feeling of euphoria from head to toe. He'd actually _done_ it! And she hadn't rejected him! For the first time in his life, he felt like he could truly call himself a man! For the first time, he felt as if cowardice and shyness would no longer hold him down like a stone around his neck!

Ryoga had no idea what was going to happen tomorrow, how she was going to act or what things were going to be like between them from now on— it was just a few kisses; they weren't exactly engaged or anything— all he knew was that he wanted to kiss her again, and he decided to leave it at that because now that he finally felt good about himself for once, now that he actually felt proud of himself, he was _not _about to worry about problems that might not even _be_ problems.

He hummed happily as he ate his ramen standing up by the kitchen counter because he felt too energetic to sit down. The moment of happiness hadn't come to him as a blessing to those who wait, he thought; he'd had to go out and get it himself. What a blissful day, what a happy occasion, what a—

Hot soup splashed against the hem of his pants as the ramen bowl fell from his suddenly weak grip, clattering loudly against the floor, the noodles landing on his bare feet with a soggy splat.

His eyes were that of a man seeing his own doom looming on the horizon as he stared at the wall, his mouth open and his eyes as wide as saucers, his arms limp with terrible, terrible realization.

She didn't know. Ukyo didn't know. That why she'd accepted him. Ukyo didn't know about his curse because he still hadn't told her; there just hadn't been a reason to, but now she'd _kissed_ him and she was coming here_ tomorrow_ and what if it rained and she was going to know, he just knew, she was going to know, she was going to _know—_

Kobayashi, having his third cigarette of the day out on his front porch, jumped with fright as he heard an agonized, almost _inhuman_ howl coming from the Hibiki house. Just as he was calming himself down, clutching is heart, he heard another yell; this one had words which he recognized, but he still didn't understand what it was supposed to _mean_.

"SHI…SHI…HOKODAN!"

Two seconds later, he fell off his chair as bright red light flashed out of all the windows on the first floor, and the house suddenly got a brand new skylight in a very unorthodox way.

As she stood in the shower, enjoying the feel of the water washing away the sweat and grime, Kuonji Ukyo hummed to herself as she wondered idly what she might put on the okonomiyaki she was planning to bring Ryoga the following day.

Tomorrow would be interesting.

**END. **

* * *

**Author's note:** It's finally over, but there will also be some sort of epilogue. Soon, I hope. Thanks for reading!

Originally, I wasn't going to have them kiss in this story, but I figured that jeez, I've written _how_ many Ryoga/Ukyo stories now (I have more, but most have been scrapped), and they still haven't kissed in a _single_ one of those so far!

Call it fan service.

Also, it seemed like this particular story called for a kiss, what with the first chapter. I don't know. Okay, two, three, four kisses— whatever. I enjoyed it, anyway, and I think Ryoga and Ukyo did, too. :)

* * *


	4. FOUR

**The Exit**

Ninnik Nishukan

* * *

Ranma, Akane and Kasumi were out walking to the market when Ranma noticed something odd. 

"Uh…why is there a giant hole in Ryoga's roof?"

"Hmm?" Akane turned her head curiously.

Kasumi gasped. "Oh my!"

They went over to investigate.

* * *

Ryoga, having agonized himself sick all night, hadn't slept until he'd finally collapsed on the couch two hours previous. Now he was completely un-rested, disoriented and still in the same worried mental state he'd been in since Ukyo had left yesterday and he'd realized how out of luck he truly was. 

When the door bell suddenly rang, he froze in terror for a moment before running towards the door, his mind in a frenzied state. He _had_ to fix this somehow!

"Ukyo, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, please don't—"He began to wail as he flung open the door; then he saw who it actually was. "Oh. It's you."

Ranma frowned at him suspiciously. "What did you do to her _this_ time, man?"

"What's wrong, Ryoga?" Akane asked, a look of concern turning up on her face.

"Ryoga?" Kasumi piped up politely. "If you want, I could give you the number of our carpenter…?"

"Uh…" Ryoga took a step back, starting to feel as if he was being harassed by a mob.

"_Seriously_, bacon breath, what did you do to her?"

"Did you have a fight, Ryoga?"

"I'm_ sure_ that hole in the roof could be patched right up if—"

"What are all of you guys doing _here_?"

They all turned at the sound of another voice suddenly joining the conversation.

"U-Ukyo!" Ryoga gulped.

"Hi, Ryoga…" Ukyo smiled nervously, suddenly shy in front of all these people. It was so _strange_ to see him after what they'd done yesterday, and she really could've used some time to process what had happened and talk to him about it before she had to deal with other people.

"Hey, Ucchan!"

"Hi, Ukyo,"

"Hello, Ukyo,"

"H-hi…!" Ranma, Akane and Kasumi had said that almost simultaneously, and Ukyo was beginning to feel just a little overwhelmed. "Ryoga," she interjected, "aren't you going to invite them in for tea or something?"

Ryoga was sure he'd broken out in a cold sweat. "Uh…sure…" His spirits sank further down when he caught Ranma sniggering at him.

Lady Luck simply loved to punish him.

* * *

Ukyo noticed Ryoga's hands shaking badly as he was filling up the tea kettle with water. Frowning, she put what she thought was a soothing hand on his arm, but it only made him yelp and almost drop the kettle, a bit of water coming close to splashing his shirt. He was panting as he turned around and stared at her, looking deathly afraid. 

"Ryoga, what's wrong?" She asked in a quiet voice, hoping the three guests in the living room wouldn't hear. "And why is there a hole in the roof?"

"U-Ukyo, I…I…" He stuttered, a living picture of misery.

A sudden fear struck her, her eyes narrowing. "You're not…I mean, do you regret what we…?"

"What?" He asked weakly.

"Don't tell me you're gonna say it was just an accident or something!" Her breath hitched in her throat, but she was starting to feel more angry than hurt. How typical! He was such a coward! "Because it was _you_ who—"

"What? N-no, I— Ukyo, please just don't…don't hate me— "He clasped her hands between his. "I l-like you, it's just that I'm— th-there's something…something w-wrong with me…!"

Ukyo gasped, squeezing his hands reflexively. She hadn't expected _this_! "Oh, gods, you're not dying of some rare disease, are you?"

Ryoga blinked, his jaw going slack. "WHAT?" He blurted, then frowned at her closely, concerned. "Ukyo, have you been watching _soaps_?"

Ukyo reddened. "N-no! Only a little, but— hey, don't you try to distract me, Hibiki!"

"Sorry," Ryoga swallowed. "I don't know how to explain this to you, but…uh…" He looked into Ukyo's expectant, soulful eyes that would soon look at him in disgust, saw her mouth open slightly as she exhaled nervously, saw her pink, soft lips that she would never let him kiss again and held her delicate hands that would never again give him a formidable uppercut and then help him get to his feet afterwards and—

"ARGH! I can't say it! You'll hate me forever!" He bellowed with the agony of a major dilemma, letting go of her hands and slamming his fist through the nearest wall in frustration.

"R-Ryoga!" Ukyo cringed, shocked.

"Everything all right in here?" Ranma, Akane and Kasumi had popped their heads into the kitchen, curious about all the noise.

"F-fine!" Ryoga stammered.

"Uh…yeah…" Ukyo agreed lamely, staring at the hole in the wall.

"Um, e-excuse us for a second!" Ryoga exclaimed before opening the first and best door he saw and dragging Ukyo with him through it, slamming it behind him.

Kasumi looked confused at that. "Why are they going to the bathroom together?"

* * *

Utterly perplexed, Ukyo went to sit down on the toilet lid to wait for Ryoga to finish fretting and actually tell her what was going on. 

"Ryoga?"

Sweating with fear, Ryoga took a deep breath. "Th-there's something I have to tell you. About me."

Ukyo nodded. "Go ahead." She said bravely, even as she wondered if she actually wanted to hear something that he thought would make her _hate_ him.

Ryoga bit his lip, leaning against the sink. "A couple of years ago, I followed Ranma to Jusenkyo…"

* * *

Ranma, Akane and Kasumi were waiting in the kitchen. Kasumi had put the forgotten kettle on and was searching for some rice crackers, Akane was looking worried and Ranma was looking both annoyed and bored. He wasn't allowed to eat any of the okonomiyaki from the box that Ukyo had brought before Ryoga and Ukyo came back, he couldn't hear what was going on from where he was and both Akane and Kasumi had forbid him to eavesdrop by the door. 

First there was silence. Then more silence. He could vaguely hear Ryoga's voice, low and murmuring, but he couldn't quite make out what he was saying.

A couple of minutes later, however, it was quite easy to make out _Ukyo's_ voice.

"YOU JERK! YOU JACKASS! YOU STUPID, DIRECTIONLESS— YOU JERK!"

There was a loud crash, then. As one person, the three guests stared at the door as they carefully sidled away from it.

"HOW COULD YOU—?"

"UKYO! P-PLEASE! _PLEASE_ LET ME EXPLAIN!"

Then it went quieter, and Ranma could only hear Ryoga's voice, frantically talking in a desperate whisper.

* * *

Ukyo was angry. Ukyo was very, very angry. Not only had she just found out something quite shocking about Ryoga, but he also had the nerve to clap a hand over her mouth and grab her wrists so she couldn't hit him or break any more things and even worse, so she couldn't scold him with an hour-long lecture like she wanted to. 

And she couldn't get loose, either; he was holding her just the tiniest bit off of the floor so she couldn't get a foothold.

"Please," he pleaded her in a stuttering whisper against her cheek, "p-please, I'm so sorry that I didn't tell you, d-don't hate me, just…I didn't mean to, okay? Please don't s-scream anymore, I don't want anyone else to hear...!" If Akane heard this, for example, he was dead meat. Pork, specifically.

"Mmnnph!" Ukyo growled against his hand, trying in vain to bite his fingers off.

"I…I just realized it yesterday that you didn't know and that everything— everything would be ruined, and I accidentally blew up the roof with a giant Shi Shi Hokodan…!" He told her in a panic, simply saying the first thing that sprung to mind. She was bucking against him, trying to elbow his stomach and knee his thigh, and nothing he said seemed to calm her down. "I felt so a-awful— things had seemed to go so well for once and— and, and then I realized you w-would never want to see me again!"

Ukyo gasped, her anger coming to a screeching halt. Ryoga had been forced to release a Shi Shi Hokodan…because of her? Because he thought she might reject him if she knew about his curse…?

Ryoga halted as well when he felt her go still in his arms, her shoulders sagging. "Can I let you go now?" He asked apprehensively, and felt her nod against his hand. Removing his hand from her mouth, he heard her sigh; he released her wrists and set her down gently on the floor.

Ukyo turned to face him, an indecipherable expression on her face. "…so, that's why there's a gaping hole in the roof?" She asked quietly.

Ryoga just nodded.

"Not seeing me again would make you _that _depressed?" Her gaze looked softer now, and he swallowed hard.

"Y-y-yes…maybe…" He looked down, twisting his fingers. Whatever it was that they had, it was very new and raw, and even if he'd had any idea what he felt about it, he wouldn't have wanted to admit to anything. Especially not when he didn't know what was going on in _her_ head, either, and especially not when he'd just revealed his darkest, deepest secret to her. "I'm…I'm so sorry I had to do this, with the…I'm sorry I held my hand over your mouth…" He bowed his head humbly to her.

"No worries," Ukyo said, trying to meet his evasive gaze. "Just teach me how to get out of a hold like that and we're even."

Ryoga looked up, puzzled; his heart leapt at what she saw in her eyes. She actually seemed to be _forgiving_ him…!

"Sorry about your bathroom cabinet," Ukyo whispered. They both looked down to where the poor cabinet lay, splintered pieces of wood scattered on the floor with old toothbrushes, half-empty tubes of toothpaste, hairbrushes, shampoo and a shattered bottle of cologne.

Ryoga shook his head solemnly. "You had every right to be angry,"

Ukyo grinned. "Looks like we've both done some material damage, huh?"

Ryoga sighed. "What else is new?"

"Don't think you're off the hook, though, jackass." Ukyo poked a finger into his chest. "We'll talk about all this later."

* * *

What was going _on_? Ranma glanced at Akane and Kasumi to see what they thought about it, and was puzzled to see them sharing some kind of amused, secret look of feminine understanding. 

"What's going on?" He whispered curiously. Kasumi merely smiled mildly at him and handed him a cup of tea.

Fine. If they were going to be _that_ way…! Ranma sulked as he drank his tea.

When they _finally _came out again, Ukyo was looking embarrassed but happy, and Ryoga was wearing the most sheepish grin Ranma had ever seen.

"Um, sorry about that," Ryoga said, bowing a little to his guests.

"Don't worry about it," Akane said dismissively, smiling.

"Tea?" Kasumi asked.

"Yes, please!" Ukyo sounded almost giddy.

"L-let's sit in the living room," Ryoga suggested, attempting to play the gracious host.

"If anybody wants any okonomiyaki, there's plenty for everybody," Ukyo offered, holding up the box she'd brought. Ryoga raised his eyebrows as he looked at the giant box of okonomiyaki; he felt very touched that she'd even bothered to bring him lunch, but it looked as if there was enough food for an entire old-fashioned, big family of three generations living under the same roof.

Ukyo, noticing his baffled look, blushed hotly. "I…I guess I went a little overboard." She mumbled, embarrassed; she hadn't cooked for someone that wasn't a customer in a long while, so she'd probably put a little too much effort into it. But she'd also seen what his lunch had been the last few days and definitely thought he needed to eat more.

"No problem," Ryoga gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile as they gathered the food and some plates, cups and chopsticks to carry them into the living room.

The soft, yet calculating looks Akane was giving Ranma as they ate were making Ranma feel uneasy.

Women always got _ideas_ into their heads around new couples, didn't they?

* * *

After dinner, the girls chatted in the living room while Ranma dragged Ryoga into the garden in a friendly headlock for a little chat of their own. 

Ranma wasted no time cutting to the chase.

"So…you and Ucchan, huh?" Ryoga had never seen Ranma grin quite that wide or leer quite that much.

Ryoga groaned. "Don't start."

Ranma nudged him. "But it's true, ain't it?"

Ryoga sighed wearily. "I don't know, we don't really…I have no idea what's going on. So don't ask."

Ranma was suddenly looking a little angry. "You _do_ like her, don't you?"

Surprised, Ryoga took a step back. "O-of course I do, otherwise I wouldn't have kissed her! What do you mean?"

"What I mean is I'm not havin' any of you playin' 'round with Ucchan if you're still hung up on Akane or something—"

"I'm not!" Ryoga objected fiercely.

"—'cause I ain't gonna think it's funny if she gets hurt again! And I'm here to tell you—"Ranma stopped, bewildered. "Wait, you actually _have_ kissed her? _When_?"

The blush seemed to appear instantly on his face, from zero to 300 m/h like a race car. He hadn't even noticed that he'd _said_ it! "I, I…none of your business!"

The leer was back. "Heeey! So _that's_ what you were doing in the bathroom! _Wasn't_ it?"

"NO!" Ryoga yelled, trembling with embarrassment. "Don't be stupid! We…we kissed yesterday, _okay_?"

Ranma laughed out loud. "I can't _believe_ P-chan got to kiss a girl before me!" Shampoo had kissed _him_, and it had beenwithout his consent, so that didn't count, and out of the two kisses he'd had with Akane, one had been with his mouth taped over and the other he couldn't even remember because he'd been under the influence of the Neko-ken, and Mikado— well, that one he was still trying to repress, as the memory made him want to throw up. Or break something and then throw up.

Ryoga glared at him.

"Makes me think we're gonna see flying pigs soon— which we _will_ see if you don't treat Ucchan right, by the way!" Ranma went on. "But you should worry more about her than me if you mess up!"

"I have no intentions of _messing it up_." Ryoga said coldly.

"Okay." Ranma grinned, deciding to leave it alone for now. "So what do you guys _do_ together, anyway? Except sucking each other's face, I mean."

Ryoga glowered at him, his fists clenching. "I've been teaching Ukyo how to fight without weapons." He said in a tight voice, refusing to get angry again.

"Really?" Ranma's eyebrows shot up as he became immediately interested. He obviously hadn't expected that answer. "I've always thought she could use some of that. How is she coming along?"

Ryoga began to calm down again as he recognized Ranma's attempt at friendliness for what it was, and sat down on the engawa. "Well, I noticed right off that she was fast and agile enough, but that her endurance and physical strength weren't quite up to it…"

Ranma sat down next to Ryoga, going into martial arts mode; now this was a topic he _never _got tired of. "Yeah, I can see that. So what did you do about it?"

"Basically I started her on the same training I did when I wanted to develop my strength further in the last year of junior high school…"

"What, you have her get lost in the woods and pull up trees by their roots or something?"

Ryoga's eyes narrowed as he was beginning to get angry again; it was just like Ranma to say something like that when they'd almost been having a civilized conversation. Ryoga was getting tempted to just get up and shut his mouth with his fist— _Hey, wait…!_ Ryoga frowned as he realized he now had the upper hand over Ranma in one quite important area, so he didn't actually have to use violence this time; he could just make Ranma embarrassed instead. The question was, though, should he really be gloating about such a thing?

_Hell, yes!_

"Shut up." Ryoga said, smirking mercilessly. "You haven't even _kissed_ a girl."

"H-hey!"

* * *

Kasumi smiled at Ukyo as she poured another cup of tea for her. "I hope we're not intruding on you and Ryoga…?" She asked politely. 

Ukyo looked down, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. "N-no…by all means…"

Akane leaned forward in a companionable manner. "Listen, Ukyo, I'm so sorry for what Ranma did on the train. I mean, trying to make you kiss in public like that…!"

"Th-that's okay…" Ukyo mumbled evasively, her cheeks blazing as she remembered how much more of a big deal their _actual _public display of a kiss had become yesterday. A quick, innocent smooch on a train would probably have been less embarrassing than getting caught rolling around on Ryoga's neighbour's lawn.

"I tried to tell him that you might not have…um, I mean, we don't really know anything about your relationship, do we? So we shouldn't be trying to butt in!"

_Isn't that what you're doing right now?_ Ukyo thought irritably, but felt a little guilty when she saw how genuinely bad Akane was feeling about the awkward situation Ranma had caused her and Ryoga.

"Because, um…we didn't know if…uh…" Akane fidgeted a little, trying to find the appropriate words, before she decided just to be straight about it. "Well, I'm wondering…had you and Ryoga already kissed then?"

Ukyo felt a twitch go through her entire body; she stared at Akane. "Wh-what? No!"

"Oh," Akane sat back demurely. "Then I _really_ have to apologize. You know how insensitive Ranma can be about these things."

"It's such a pity," Kasumi went on cheerfully. "Ryoga is such a sweet, polite, young man, but he really is _very_ shy, isn't he?" She gave Ukyo a look of good-natured sympathy. "I think you might have to take the initiative there, Ukyo."

Suddenly, Ukyo was starting to feel a little annoyed. She knew that Kasumi meant well, but the look she was giving her now was almost as if she was feeling sorry for her or something for not having progressed any further, and who was _she_ to talk? Dr. Tofu was _way_ worse than Ryoga when it came to girls, and _he_ was _older_, too! Shouldn't he have gotten past that by now? Ukyo seriously doubted that Dr. Tofu had ever managed to kiss Kasumi, yet there was something about Kasumi's motherly expression that was making her feel rather young and foolish.

"Yes, it's true," Akane giggled a little. "He's _so _nervous around girls!"

Okay, that did it. Everything they were saying was kind of true, of course, but even so she got the sudden urge to defend Ryoga. What he'd done was very brave, really— kind of thoughtless, maybe, but brave; _she _wouldn't have dared to do it, anyway— and he deserved to get some credit for it! And what did she care if they knew?

"I don't have to take the initiative because he's already done it for me!" Ukyo blurted as she stood up abruptly from the couch.

Akane's eyes went as wide as saucers. "What?"

"Yes! That's right!" Ukyo went on carelessly. "_Ryoga_ kissed _me_!" She said, pointing to her chest for emphasis.

"Oh my…" Kasumi gasped.

"B-but I thought you said you had never k-kissed…?" Akane stammered; to hear such things about people she knew always shocked her just the little tiniest bit because she was so inexperienced herself, and it was strange to think that her friends that were the same age as her might be doing all sorts of things…and it made her envious, since Ranma hadn't really made a move in the almost two years they'd been engaged. If even_ Ryoga_ managed to do it, why couldn't _he_?

And it was too bad that Ranma wasn't more forward, she thought miserably, because she herself was too scared to take the initiative with him…

"That was then, this is now! He kissed me yesterday and that's the end of that, okay?" Ukyo almost added a triumphant _"So there!"_ but she figured there should be some kind of very definite limit to how immature she allowed herself to get, and she felt she had already begun to use up her quota for the day.

"Oh my…" Kasumi repeated, starting to look impressed. Both sisters were silent for a moment as they looked in the direction of the garden, where they knew Ryoga was at that moment.

Ukyo felt an irrational burst of pride as they were left momentarily speechless. Maybe they'd look at Ryoga a bit differently from now on, she thought smugly— not _too _differently, though, she added to herself, or things might get violent.

And then she blushed as she realized she'd just had a decidedly _possessive_ thought about Ryoga; she felt a bit uncomfortable over the fact that she was capable of jealousy when it came to him, but she decided to forget about it for now and file away the thought for future reference. It was easy to forget it, too, because Akane's next question made Ukyo's face redden so hotly that she thought for a moment it would explode.

"How was it?"

Oh, gods, now they wanted _details_? Okay, so she could understand that Akane would be curious since she and Ranma had never kissed before, but…had they no _shame_? Couldn't they see she wasn't ready to talk about it like that? It had happened only _yesterday_, for goodness' sake!

Ukyo groaned as she hid her face in her hands, shaking her head. Well, they could _forget _about details, she thought, fervently hoping that Ryoga wasn't telling Ranma anything she would have to kill him for later.

* * *

When Ranma, Akane and Kasumi had finished torturing them and left to go on their shopping rounds and Ryoga and Ukyo had tidied up the dirty dishes, the house seemed suddenly very big and quiet. 

They were alone again.

"Um, so…" Ryoga began reluctantly as he finished wiping off the last plate with a dish towel. "I guess you want to talk about...about what I told you earlier?"

"Actually?" Ukyo sent him a disarming little smile. "I think I'd like us to do some training first. Kinda clears the mind, you know?"

Ryoga blinked; he'd forgotten all about training. "Training? Now? I…I don't know, maybe we should—"

He didn't even get to finish the sentence before Ukyo was in his face, her expression telling him that somehow, he'd just provoked the hell out of her about something.

"Oh-_ho_! I _see_!" She sneered sarcastically. "You're gonna start treating me like some sort of helpless little girly-girl now just because we've kissed, aren't you?"

"What? No, I—"

She crossed her arms firmly over her chest, scowling. "If I have to start dressing like a boy again for you to take me seriously, I will, you know!" She warned.

Ryoga put up his hands in a placating manner, completely disoriented. What was she suddenly being like _that_ for now? What did he do? "There's no need to— listen, Ukyo, why would you—"

"Or maybe we'll just _never_ kiss ever again, how does that sound?" She went on mercilessly.

"What…?" His face fell, and his arms dropped to his sides. Again. It had happened again. No matter how many times Ranma had dressed up like girls and tricked him into thinking that he was wanted, that someone cared, and no matter how many times he'd let himself believe that Akane was interested in him, only to be disappointed, he had still believed Ukyo yesterday and today, no matter how many times he'd been fooled in the past.

Somewhere, some kind of deity _had_ to be laughing at him.

"You really…you never w-wanted to kiss me in the first place…" He said in this small, broken voice, utterly painful to listen to. "Did you?" It had taken a lot out of him to even dare to do it in the first place, and he couldn't bear it if it turned out that she hadn't even liked it, if she'd just pretended. Or maybe even worse, if she had liked it, but taunted him by refusing him to ever do it again, just to be cruel.

Ukyo blinked; he looked, suddenly, like a small boy that somebody had stolen a bag of candy from, total shock and disappointment shining in his eyes. Okay, so maybe it hadn't been very mature of her to make a threat like that. What, was she supposed to act as if she wielded some sort of power over him now?

Well, judging by the look on his face, she _did_, but it was up to her if she wanted to abuse it, and quite acutely, she knew that she really, really shouldn't. And she really, really shouldn't try to trick him into thinking that she didn't care whether they ever kissed again or not, either, because she did.

She had the newly acquired ability to make or break this boy, and to be honest, it scared her; she got the feeling, now, that that was a big part of why she'd just said all those silly things. It was so much easier to just be angry than to have to actually _deal _with this thing with Ryoga. It had just been a little too much, too soon for her; it had been emotionally overwhelming. It took so little to hurt him, and she wasn't exactly the most sensitive or most patient of girls…but she really wasn't a quitter, either.

"Ryoga," She sighed, trying to be patient; she'd been so stupid. "If I really didn't want to kiss you, don't you think I would have stopped you? And do you really think I would have taken the initiative to kiss you again if I didn't want to?"

"Oh…uh…well…" Ryoga suddenly felt at a loss for words.

"Ryoga…" Ukyo said kindly as she went over to him, "Please forget every single stupid little thing I just said earlier about dressing up like a boy and never kissing again, okay?" She told him, looking imploringly into his eyes. When he finally nodded hesitantly, she smiled, grasping his face with both hands and bringing their lips together. This was a whole other experience than yesterday; this was all hot and melty and slow, slow, slow…and he was clinging to her like a lifeline; she could practically feel the relief and joy radiating from his body, pouring into hers and surrounding them both. And it felt as good as it felt frightening, the fact that she could make him feel like that.

_Okay, so maybe she did want to kiss me, after all_, Ryoga thought, feeling a little silly. Maybe he'd gotten himself hurt a lot over the years by letting himself get carried away by his own emotions, but he realized now that it could go both ways. He could also risk missing out on something good, he thought, as he grasped her hand, weaving their fingers together.

Even though he was still reeling from having told her his darkest, deepest secret today and even though they'd just basically had a fight, Ryoga felt like they had all the time in the world, suddenly, and the kiss became long, long and longer, nice and savoury, but impossibly slow and tender; more than yesterday, it felt like they were connecting, sinking into each other…and her hand was touching the small of his back, under his shirt, against his bare skin; she hadn't done that yesterday, either…

He felt her shift closer to him and make an appreciative little sound when he dared to let his fingers slip under her top to rest on her hip, but then she broke the kiss off with a soft little pop. Ryoga stared at her, dazed. What now?

"Now," Ukyo said firmly, pushing him gently away. "Tell me why you didn't want to train with me."

Ryoga raised both eyebrows, looking confused. "Um…I _do_ want to train with you. I just thought we should wait half an hour or something since we've just had enough okonomiyaki to feed an army."

When his words started to sink in, Ukyo's eyebrows skyrocketed, an expression of complete incredulity on her face. "_That's_ what you were gonna say?"

"Yes!" Ryoga insisted.

Ukyo stood completely still for a moment, just staring at him as her face went gradually redder and redder. She suddenly felt very, _very_ small and stupid. "Why did you let me go on and on about— why didn't you_ stop_ me?" She complained as her mind finally snapped back into action.

"I _tried_! You wouldn't _listen_!" He blurted.

"Oh, this is just _perfect_…" Ukyo groaned as she hid her blazing face in her hands. "I'm sorry…" She mumbled, her voice muffled by her hands.

Ryoga leaned down towards her face, peering at her worriedly. "Are you okay? Do you want a glass of water or something?"

Ukyo let out a sound somewhere between a laugh and a squelched sob. "Jeez, no, I'm okay…I'm okay…!"

"Do you still want to train later?"

"You know what?" Ukyo sighed as she dropped her hands from her face, looking up at him. "Maybe I'd better not." She laughed weakly. "At the rate I'm going, I'll probably do something really intelligent like trip over my own feet."

"If you say so." Ryoga shrugged. "Um…let's go sit in the garden for a while, okay?"

"Okay…" Ukyo sighed again, holding a hand to her still hot forehead as she followed him.

* * *

The garden was, like all the gardens in the neighbourhood, quite small, but nice. It had an ornate stone lantern in the corner under a small tree on the lawn, and there was a small gravel path. With the lack of any lawn chairs, they'd simply settled down right on the tiny lawn. 

It was very hot outside, so they simply sat listening to the crickets chirping for a while, eating some Popsicles that Ryoga had found in the freezer the other day. He didn't remember buying any— things like that always melted before _he _ever managed to get them home— so it must've been either his mom or dad, but how _they'd_ managed to get them here either was a mystery to him. For all he knew, they could be poisoned Popsicles left by robbers. He'd take his chances, though.

Again, it was Ryoga who felt he needed to start up the conversation. "So, um…about P-chan… y-you don't hate me, right?" He smiled feebly at her, fiddling with the Popsicle stick once the Popsicle was eaten.

She shook her head, her only concession to his attempt at a joke a small twitch at the corners of her mouth. "No, but I gotta admit I'm pretty spun by all this."

Somehow he got the feeling she wasn't just talking about his curse. "…by what, specifically?"

"Well, you know…" She shrugged, picking at a thread on her shorts. "This was all very sudden, wasn't it?" It really was, and she'd had so little time to sort it out by herself before she had to deal with other people, like Akane and Kasumi practically _interrogating_ her. Maybe getting to know what _he_ thought would make it easier for her to figure out her own feelings. She really hoped so, anyway.

Once more, Ryoga felt a small stab of fear that she was about to decide she didn't want this after all, whatever this was. He knew he couldn't ask for some sort of definite answer, either, because he didn't know what was going on between them any better than she did.

"Don't you think so?" She asked hesitantly, peeking up at him under her bangs.

"If…if you mean to ask if I'm confused…then yeah, I am." He looked down at her hands, following their movements as they nervously started pulling up the blades of grass near her side one by one. That couldn't bode well, could it? Then again, what did he know about girls? Were they supposed to be nervous when they _liked _someone or when they _didn't_ like someone?

"Me too…" Ukyo agreed, playing with the soggy Popsicle stick, bending it back and forth; when it suddenly snapped, she jumped just a little, as if she hadn't even been aware that she'd been doing it. "Look," she went on, focusing on his face again, "I don't really know what's going on here, you know, but maybe that's not even the question…" She trailed off thoughtfully. Maybe she was just going at this from the wrong angle? It had to be less complicated than it felt, right?

"Wh-what do you mean?"

"Maybe the question isn't what we're doing or what's going to happen…maybe we should just ask ourselves…" She paused, meeting his gaze. "…do you like it?"

"Like it…?" Ryoga gave her a puzzled look; what exactly was she referring to?

"I don't know…do you like it when we're training?" She suggested, "And do you like, you know, _this_? Us just being together?" She asked, gesturing between them.

There were a lot of things she liked about spending time with him, but she was completely fumbling in the dark when it came to relating to a boy who actually _reciprocated _her feelings; it made her so confused, so full of tension and self-consciousness.

Dealing with Ranchan had mostly been a breeze, because all she had to do to show him affection, she felt, was to cook for him, and she could do that with a hand tied behind her back while wearing a blindfold; that was _easy_! Dealing with Ryoga, though, who was nervous around her and looked at her like he wanted to touch her but didn't dare to, well…that wasn't easy at all. She just felt so painfully young, so inexperienced, and she was; if she'd even freaked out just because Ranma had called her cute that one time, what didn't it do her when Ryoga actually went and confessed things like the fact that the thought of looking dishonourable in her eyes made him so depressed he actually _blasted away parts of his own roof_?

"Y-yes…" He admitted shyly, trying not to seem too eager but not too uninterested, either, which was hard.

"And this…?" She leaned forward, pressing their lips somewhat chastely together, lingering for a while but not trying to deepen the kiss.

Ryoga licked his lips when she leaned back on her haunches, looking at him. Her lips had been a little cool to the touch, but also soft and moist, and she'd tasted like pineapple-flavoured Popsicle.

"Yes…" He decided; yes, he definitely liked _that _part, he thought as he stared at her lips, appealingly red and puffy from the cold Popsicle and the kiss. Not quite consciously, he reached out and ran a hand through her long, soft hair, falling in thick locks around her face. When he brushed her hair off of her bare shoulders, he noticed that her skin had begun to freckle because of the days they'd spent training together in the sun; shyly, he dropped his hand to his side again.

"Strawberry flavour?" She asked idly, smiling somewhat dreamily at him. She probably shouldn't be mixing kisses into what _should _be a serious discussion— she shouldn't be doing things that might sway him or herself to just jump into this without thinking properly about it first— but jeez, he was sitting there, all deep brown eyes and broad shoulders and dark hair and wet lips, squinting against the bright sunlight, smelling of earth and sun and strawberry popsicle, his body language giving her vibes as if he thought she was actually _attractive_—

"Strawberry." He agreed in a faraway voice, feeling oddly weak; he still wasn't quite used to the whole kissing thing. The sudden reality of having someone who was not just willing but even seemed eager to kiss him was something that it was sort of hard for him to believe. He'd been lonely for so long that he'd almost been on his way to simply accepting that loneliness was the natural state of his life— but then she had, much to his own shock and surprise, accepted his impulsive advances and now there they were, kissing on the grass of his sunny garden during summer break, holding popsicle sticks as if they were taken right out of some sort of idyllic postcard; and he should know, he'd seen too many of those sugary sweet postcards on his lonesome travels. It seemed too good, all of a sudden, and he almost feared that he was just about to wake up to find it was all a dream.

"But what we did just now was just the _easy_ part of an actual relationship." Ukyo grinned apologetically, as if she was responsible for this unfortunate state of the world.

He halted, looking at her searchingly.

"I mean…" She frowned at her feet, toes curling into the grass. "I have school and I always work so much and you're almost never around, anyway…so if we even considered, you know, trying to make something out of this…how would we do it?"

Ryoga stared at her, heart thumping just a little too hard. He was flabbergasted; here they went from sharing a few kisses to her admitting she might actually be thinking of giving them a chance to…? Did she actually want to be his…?

"I don't know, I-I've never…I've never actually been in a r-relationship before," He stuttered. He thought himself to be such a hopeless case that he really hadn't expected her to even _consider _him as boyfriend material, he really hadn't hoped that she would look at him that way; kissing was one thing, this was something _completely different_. He'd been aware that there had always been a sort of weird energy between them, manifesting itself in fights and shouting matches and insults, but it had never occurred to him that it might one day turn into something like _this_ and that she would be sitting here, at his house, telling him—

"Me, neither…" Ukyo sighed. "Well, you could start by telling me more about your curse…and just you in general, I guess." She tilted her head at him curiously. "I mean, we don't actually know that much about each other, do we?"

"No…" Ryoga drew a breath. "We don't, do we?"

"Okay, so, um…do you want to start? Is there anything you want to know about me…?"

He thought for a while, trying to gather his wits, before he remembered something. "Is your favourite colour really red?"

She shrugged. "Yeah."

"Good," He seemed pleased. "So is mine."

She raised her eyebrows in surprise; now she knew why he'd given her that little nod of approval on the train when he'd asked her about her favourite colour.

"What's your favourite ice cream flavour?" She asked quickly.

"Macha." He said, and jumped a little when she squealed in delight.

"That's mine, too!"

"Oh?" He looked bewildered, yet pleased again.

"This is kind of stupid, though, isn't it?" Ukyo laughed just a little then, feeling self-conscious. "I mean, we're seventeen, not five."

"Sorry…" He cleared his throat, trying to look serious. She was right; you didn't build a relationship on trivial stuff like favourite ice cream flavours when you were _supposed_ to be an adult.

_What are we doing,_ Ukyo thought, _playing a silly game of do-we-match? _She almost felt like they were back on the train, playing Truth or Dare. Still, she didn't know much about relationships, but wasn't it normal to try to figure out stuff about each other at this point? People didn't have to know every last little detail about each other before dating, did they? They didn't have to have been friends for a million years first, did they?

Still, from what she'd overheard from the girls at school, you were at least supposed to wait to kiss the guy until you'd been on a couple of dates, didn't you? Then again, she supposed there were no _rules_ as to what order you had to do things in; how two people worked things out between them were their own business, right?

Besides, she'd been in an arranged engagement since she was six. Anything was normal after _that_.

Wait— she was_ still_ engaged, wasn't she?

They sat in silence once again as they tried to come up with questions that would actually spark some sort of meaningful conversation. After a while, Ukyo slipped her hand over his on the grass, absentmindedly playing with his thumb, and it suddenly dawned on him that while things were still very uncertain between them, there was just enough intimacy and friendship between them now for him to attempt to ask some of the questions he'd wanted to ask on the train during the game.

He'd have to start out small, though; he certainly wasn't going to spring the question about her experiences with cross-dressing on her before he knew she wasn't going to get upset; not when things were as fragile as they were.

Reaching a decision, he cleared his throat to get her attention."Ukyo?"

"Hmm?" She made an absentminded sound in her throat as she seemed to find the nail of his thumb immensely fascinating.

"Do you think…?" He began, fidgeting a little as he realized he hadn't really worked out beforehand how to ask her this. "I mean, would it be okay if we…um, I dunno, went to have some coffee together or something?"

Ukyo halted, blinking at him in astonishment, utterly surprised at his initiative. "A-are you asking me out on a _date_?"

"Well, uh…yes. I…I mean, if it's okay with you…" As Ryoga nodded in affirmation, she blushed despite herself. It might be stupid to be shy about this after what they'd been doing, but nobody had ever asked her out on a date before except Tsubasa— and he didn't count, she decided firmly, because she was pretty sure he was only interested in her because of the whole 'my fellow cross-dresser' thing and because he loved a challenge. Ryoga, on the other hand…good gods, was she really being asked out on a date by someone she actually _liked_?

When she didn't answer right away, Ryoga went on nervously, desperate to explain himself, to just keep on adding words and adding words until she was swayed. Because she had to say yes, didn't she? _Didn't_ she? "I mean…um, isn't that what people do when they want to know stuff about the other person? When they want to figure out, you know…if they're c-compatible or not?"

Finally Ukyo seemed to tumble out of her shock, and she smiled coyly at him. "Okay, I'll go out with you." She accepted, feeling oddly giddy as she saw the relief and elation lighting up his eyes like fireworks at her positive answer.

Ryoga immediately brightened, letting out an excited breath. "Y-you _will_?"

Ukyo nodded. "I will if you promise to tell me more about your curse."

Ryoga halted; did that mean that she might decide _not_ to date him if she heard something she didn't like out of what he told her? Then again, what choice did he have? It wasn't as if she was just going to forget about it, and besides, she deserved to know these things if she was even _considering_ dating him.

Ryoga let out a heavy sigh. "In that case we'd better make some tea or something. This is gonna take a while."

Ukyo hid her giggle behind her hand, following him into the kitchen.

"There's only one problem about that date, though…" Ukyo began, causing him to turn around.

"Wh-what?" Ryoga gulped as he caught her dead-serious expression. Was she having _second thoughts_? She was having second thoughts, _wasn't_ she? It _was_ the curse, wasn't it? She hated him because of P-chan after all, _didn't_ she?

"I'm still engaged," she said, and the words struck his mind like lightening; the Popsicle stick made a pathetic plunking noise as it dropped to the floor out of his now weakened grasp.

"Ukyo…" In his mind he could see her slipping away; his heart was tumbling, no falling, no _hurling_ like a comet to end its days as a splotch mark down in his feet, and the pain was—

"… should go talk to Ranchan and end the engagement before we go out." Ukyo went on, and he hadn't caught the beginning of the sentence, because like on the train, he'd gone momentarily deaf with shock, but now he felt a jolt in his body as his heart skyrocketed upwards again, as his mind thawed itself when he heard some of the sweetest words ever spoken.

Ukyo was going to end her engagement with Ranma.

"…because otherwise it would almost be like cheating in a way, wouldn't it?" Ukyo said, her cheeks reddening. "Although…" she ventured thoughtfully,"…I suppose that _technically_ I already cheated on him when…wh-when we kissed…" She pointed out shyly.

She really was, Ryoga thought dizzily, she really was going to end her engagement with Ranma! And because of _him_, too! It was unbelievable to say the least.

"Either way, I think it's for the best, don't you?" She looked up at him with big, bright, hopeful eyes and he could've kissed her right then, but it looked like she was waiting for an answer.

Why she even had to ask was beyond him. "Y-yes," he said, somewhat hoarsely but with great determination, nodding his head vigorously. "Yes, I think it would be for the best."

"Okay, then," Ukyo gave him a contented smile. "Now where's that tea you promised me?"

They had tea again, and Ukyo got the reluctant, yet lengthy tale of what it was like to live with the Eitonnichuan curse. Much to Ryoga's surprise, it didn't change her mind about dating him.

So the next day, as promised, Ukyo ended her engagement with a more than willing Ranma and went on a date with Ryoga, who still couldn't quite believe his luck.

Later, Ryoga taught Ukyo how to get out of the hold he'd used on her in the bathroom.

**THE END (again).**

* * *

**  
Author's note: **So I did it. I just couldn't let it end with chapter three after all, so I planned an epilogue, but now I'm planning an epilogue for chapter four. These things happen, I guess. I was going to finish chapter three of _Between_ this weekend, but lost inspiration and suddenly ended up finishing chapter four of _The Exit _instead. I'm sure nobody's disappointed. I haven't updated _The Exit_ since November. 

I know. There's probably too much smooching again, but seriously…all I know is that when you're seventeen, once you first kiss the person you're attracted to and gradually fall in love with, it's pretty much all you want to do. Well, that and other things, but this isn't a lime.

Anyway, my point is that in addition to that, Ryoga and Ukyo were both first-time kissers, and so it's only natural for them to want to explore.

Mmm, Ryoga/Ukyo kissy face summer goodness…makes you long for spring, doesn't it? Jeez, I just realized I've written a summer vacation romance! Groan. Oh well, it only counts as cheesy if the relationship doesn't last past the summer, right?

I take back what I said in the A/N in chapter three; I just remembered that I_ did_ have Ukyo and Ryoga kiss in my short Ry/Uk story _Stillness in Time_.

I guess I forgot about it because it's just an old one-shot.

**Epilogue coming up, too! Waaaaait for it! **

* * *


	5. Epilogue

**The Exit**

Ninnik Nishukan

* * *

They'd had their first date a little less than a year ago, and considering how the date went, Ranma thought, this should in reality _not_ be happening. For once, though, it seemed that old Pork Rinds had experienced a stroke of luck. He probably deserved it, too.

If you were gonna be honest, the date _really_ couldn't have started off any worse. There had been the hole in the roof, for one thing. It hadn't been repaired yet.

It'd been_ raining_ that day.

When Ukyo had arrived— Ryoga had told him this in confidence much later, when their friendship had gotten a bit more solid— nobody had answered the door when she'd rung the door bell, because it's really hard to open a door you had trouble even _finding_ in the first place, and especially when you were only about a foot and a half tall and had trotters instead of hands.

Desperate to let her know that he hadn't ditched her, but had simply been inconvenienced, Ryoga had run around the house in a panic to find some hot water to reverse the curse.

Ukyo, being a fairly bright girl, had actually checked the front door to see if it was unlocked instead of running off crying somewhere. Lucky for her and for Ryoga, the door had been open.

After Ukyo had given the little porker a hot bath and a fresh change of clothes, Ryoga had gone up on the roof wearing his old raincoat to secure a tarpaulin over the hole, and then they were finally on their way to their first date, Ryoga apologizing to her and thanking her until his jaw almost came unhinged.

Of course, this last part hadn't been included in Ryoga's version of the evening as told to Ranma— it had been added from _Ukyo's_ version of the evening as told to Ranma.

There was also yet _another _version, from Ukyo to _Akane_, that he'd accidentally overheard one night. This version didn't have any of the funny P-chan parts in it, of course, since it was censored for Akane— Ranma swore he'd have finally spilled the beans about P-chan if Ryoga hadn't finally manned up and done it about two weeks later— but it did have a lot of the juicy, embarrassing, emotional stuff that was perfect to tease the Lost Boy with.

They'd made it through dinner, miraculously enough, but when the dessert had arrived, the waiter had tripped and Ryoga had been drenched again, this time by a pitcher of water landing on his head. Ukyo had managed to get some hot water from the establishment to reverse the curse, but the damage had been done and they were humiliated enough to leave.

Once they'd been walking to the movies under Ryoga's umbrella, a passing car had splattered muddy water all over Ukyo's dress. Ranma had overheard Ukyo telling Akane later that since it was more or less the first time she'd worn a dress since she was little, she'd been…_pretty upset,_ to say the least.

Ryoga had told Ranma later that Ukyo had seemed utterly inconsolable, and that he'd begun to think it was all over…when a pack of runaway dogs had suddenly started chasing them. Ryoga and Ukyo could've gotten rid of them easily, of course, but they'd become too many after a while, and Ukyo had insisted that he wasn't allowed to hurt the poor animals in any case.

Besides, as Ukyo had told Akane, his hands were busy, anyway, since it seemed he thought it was his job to carry her to safety as they'd fled. Ukyo had felt exasperated, figuring it was the sight of a dress that did something to the male brain, making them act all old-fashioned and stupidly chivalrous, but she supposed things could be worse than being 'rescued' by a cute, strong guy who didn't seem to mind that the mud from her dress was getting all over his clothes as well.

Ranma still couldn't quite get how anybody could describe Pig Boy as 'cute', but girls could be weird like that sometimes.

Anyway, the evening had been topped off with Ryoga and Ukyo huddled together up in a park tree under Ryoga's red bamboo umbrella, muddy and slightly wet.

Considering all this, Ranma and Akane had trouble understanding why Ryoga and Ukyo still looked back at their first date with fondness.

That was because _neither_ of them had heard the _fully unedited_ version.

* * *

_His insides felt cold. The night was hot and humid despite the rain, yet he was shivering, staring blankly ahead, the loud barking of the dogs becoming background static. __This was the sort of thing that always happened to him. Who else would get attacked by a pack of dogs on their first date with a girl? _

_Okay__, so maybe Ranma, but…but he just __**wasn't**__ Ranma! He couldn't simply shrug this off. _

_If there were any possible ways__ in which this date could've gone any worse, he sure couldn't think of them. _

_His spine, which had been straight with disbelieving shock and disappointment, went slack and he slouched, his head sagging down to shoulder level. He wanted to comfort her, but he had no idea what to do, and he didn't deserve to comfort her after how he'd ruined their date, anyway. There was no chance there would ever be a second date between him and Kuonji Ukyo, no chance—_

"_This sort of thing is always happening to me," Ukyo said bitterly, a miserable frown on her face. "And now my mascara's even running. Great— just what I needed to top the evening off," she sniffled, rubbing at her cheeks. "I can't be allowed to look feminine or cute for even five minutes, can I?" She sneered, her fingers clawing at the skirt of her already ruined dress. "Why did I even bother to put the stupid stuff on? It's not like I even know how—"_

"_U-Ukyo?" Ryoga asked tentatively. _

"_What?" Ukyo snapped, startled, as if she'd forgotten he was even there. "What is it?" She went on, a little calmer, but suddenly embarrassed. _

_She'd managed to keep the worst of the awful sense of disappointment and unworthiness at bay by ranting angrily about it, but now that she couldn't seem to throw out any more harsh words at the world in general, now that she was aware of him watching her, she felt like she was being slowly dragged down somehow, as if she was unravelling into something disgusting, as if she was nothing—__ here she'd broken off her engagement with Ranma for Ryoga, and now she'd managed to mess __**that**__ up, too, so now she had nothing left and nobody would ever— he'd left her in the Cursed Tunnel of Lost Love for Akane, so why wouldn't he leave her again, now, when she was so__—_

_He hung his head, eyes downcast. __"I'm so sorry."_

_Ukyo blinked at the unexpected apology before she cleared her throat, looking down.__ Here she'd been sitting, hating herself and thinking he hated her, too, when he was apparently only busy hating himself. It was so easy to get carried away sometimes, wasn't it? _

_Again, she cleared her throat, louder this time, as if it had some sort of cathartic effect on the whole messy situation. "Oh. Well, it's not like it's your fault. Crazy stuff happens around here all the time." _

_He sighed, grimacing. __"That's...true, but I just—"_

_She picked at her __dress, looking wretched. "Look, the curse...I won't lie, it's been a problem tonight," she admitted in a quiet tone. _

"_Yes," h__e said dully, steeling himself for the worst. Just as with Akane, his curse would come between him and the girl he liked all over again. It had been bad enough that Ukyo had already seen him in his cursed form today, but __**now**__—_

_But she said nothing for a long while, and when he finally dared to look up, she was returning his gaze with something like...vulnerability, which he just might never quite get used to seeing on Kuonji Ukyo's face. _

_And suddenly, he had something of an epiphany. He understood what she needed, how he might remedy this terrible disaster. What might make up for her muddy dress and runny mascara and wounded feminine pride._

"_Ukyo?" He began tryingly._

_She sniffed a bit, head turning half away from him. __"Hmmm?"_

_He swallowed, suddenly full of nerves. __"If I...did...I mean, if I..."_

"_What?" She prompted, self-consciously wiping her nose on the back of her hand._

"_Just...you're so…__um…uh, nothing, never mind," he murmured, blushing, getting angry at his own cowardice; at his inability to be there for her when she needed him. It was like there was some sort of mental block, something choking down his words—_

_Ukyo looked at him curiously, at his troubled expression and at his fingers, weaving his hands together into tight knots. Then a light went on in her head. "The curse was a problem tonight, but…I mean, it's not really— I mean, I don't mind— we could always work around it somehow—" She pressed out, leaning closer, frowning in concern. _

_As he heard he__r tentative attempt at reassurance, he understood what had been stopping him from telling her what he needed to. Taking a slightly shaky breath, he decided to try again. "Y-you still look w-wonderful, you know," he said softly, trying to ignore the frustrating stutter. _

_Her eyes narrowed at what seemed like a blatant lie to her, annoyed at the small but insistent fluttering of hope in her chest. __"That's crap if I ever heard it," she gritted out. _

"_Hah!" He whispered as he leaned closer yet, their breaths mingling for a second before he kissed her, drawing her damp and muddy form closer to his. Her lips tasted like sweet green tea and yakiniku, and she smelled of rain and earth; he felt intoxicated, drinking her in as if he hadn't seen her for months even though they'd kissed only yesterday. His left hand seemed to have a will of its own as it slid up her wet dress and settled over her breast, gently stroking and squeezing. _

_When they parted, Ukyo was panting and wide-eyed. _

_Ryoga hesitated, wondering if he'd overstepped some line with her__; his left hand quickly dropped from her breast. "U-Ukyo—"_

"_Shut up," she gasped. She couldn't remember ever feeling this attractive__, and felt a sweet shot of empowerment and affection as she took in the sight of his bright red face and trembling frame. So she drew him to herself, capturing his lips with hers and wrapping her arms around his neck, grabbing his hand to return it to her breast. _

_This went on for __quite a while until the dogs grew bored and went away.

* * *

_

Ukyo had asked Ryoga for a second date when they'd climbed down from the tree, and he, his heart practically in his eyes, had stuttered out an eager _yes_.

To avoid any more attacks of bad weather and rampant animals, Ukyo had suggested that they should just have dinner at _her _place the next time.

But Ranma and Akane didn't know any of these last few details, which was why especially Ranma couldn't quite fathom why they were now _moving in together_.

It made sense that Ukyo had finally grown sick and tired of Ryoga spending two out of every three days lost somewhere and had decided to suggest moving in together, and it also made sense for them to move into Ryoga's house, considering it was bigger than Ukyo's apartment, it was close to Ucchan's and since Ryoga's parents were never home anyway— Ranma and Akane could both see all that, but how Ryoga and Ukyo had actually managed to bumble their way from that disaster of a first date towards this point was still something of a mystery to them.

Ryoga and Ukyo didn't kiss and tell. In time, they assumed, Ranma and Akane would probably figure these things out for themselves firsthand, anyway.

In fact, Nabiki had already been around to the Hibiki house at one point and interrupted their daily training by asking them if they wanted to place their bets on when exactly it'd happen.

The thought of Ranma and Akane eventually getting together still made them feel just a little wistful, but it was only a passing mood, and it was something they could share.

**The End.

* * *

**

**Author's note:** Well, here's another one that's finally finished about two years late. Just tying up some loose ends, I guess.

Sap. Old, old sap. Ooollld. This has been sitting half-finished in my computer forever. Probably since…2006? 2005? So I didn't write this now, I just deleted a lot of crap, added some stuff and cleaned it up a bit. If it seems rushed, it's because it is. I just wanted to finally finish it.

**A pack of runaway dogs:** The kinda thing that just happens in the Ranmaverse. Don't ask me.

**Ukyo ****never wearing a dress:** This is based on the manga, where, as far as I remember, she didn't wear a dress— at least not in this fanfic universe, which goes AU after the _Cursed Tunnel of Lost Love_ chapters.

And no, they didn't have sex up that tree— just in case any of you are wondering. :P

* * *


End file.
